pearse street developments

I saw the plans today, tis a hard one to call, in so much as they will have a very adverse effect on the four Houses including the Pearse House, but the height is not excessive from the Townsend St side.

The architectural quality looked poor and I have never heard of an 8 story 86 bedroom hotel comprising Suites, each suite is chalked in for 8 bed rooms lumps.

Also 10*8 =80
11*8 =88

Is there going to be a discount for renting 0.75 of a suite?

There seems to be an informal archiseek tradition of reusing/resurecting old threads, so I thought I’d try it here.

I found this old photograph of Pearse St. while dicking about on the web:

It took quite a while for me to find my bearings with the photo as the corner building mirrors Doyles Pub across the street which I found very disorienting. The giveaway is the firestation tower in the background behind the wierd christmas tree thing or whatever it is.

Nothing particularly remarkable about it really but what stands out for me are the Townsend St. buildings in the background. I’ve always fondly imagined having the power to knock the Screen cinema and the disgusting An Post building beside it and reinstated the street scape. In particular, if you were imaginative with a replacement corner building (on the Screeen cinema “plaza”), you could terminate the vista from Fleet St with the front of a building instead of having it point into the side of An Post building.

Who hasn’t? 🙂

Yes a good image showing the old stock of Townsend St and the lovely Wide Streets Commission ‘feature’ building there on the apex – as you say mirroring Doyles:

This is such an interesting area of the city, which would be even better had the original Theatre Royal survived.
Even so, Pearse St Garda Station is such a striking unique building in the centre here that frankly anything at all would work well with it on the Screen site; even the Screen does in a way cause it makes it look even better by comparision!

A striking contemporary building in between D’Olier Chambers and the Garda Station would look fantastic I think – fully completing the collection of fine stand-alone buildings surrounding the public space at the junction of these five streets.
Indeed it is this very public space that ought to be next on the agenda for improvement after Screen & Co.

Such a shame the Abbey couldn’t have filled the void 🙁

Indeed it is this very public space that ought to be next on the agenda for improvement after Screen & Co.

Definitely. It has such potential especially as it is no longer one of the busiest southside traffic junctions. Presumably traffic will be reduced further as DCC continue to remove traffic from the nearby central north/south axis of O’Connell Street and Westmoreland Street. It would make a great complement to College Green even though it lacks the grand grand buildings of it’s neighbour. It needs the streetscape of Townsend Street and the corner with Hawkins Street to be reinstated ‘though to complete it’s perimeter and they need to reclaim as much space as possible from the roads to recreated the feeling of a large civc square. Ideally, the only traffic ‘though it would be contained in a couple of Bus lanes.

7/4/2006

The conversion into offices of the former premises of the Dublin Oil Gas Company/Academy Cinema is nearing completion now.
The exterior is finished and looks impressive; a fine stone-coloured render, perhaps with a light wash of some kind over it complements the rusty tones of the granite dressings very well:

From Archiseek:
Originally built as an industrial headquarters for Dublin Oil Gas Station, established to extract gas from fish oil. This business went bankrupt in 1834 when the price of fish oil, previously very cheap, suddenly and rapidly increased. In 1842 the site was acquired by the Society of Antient Concerts. Having adapted the interior into an 800-seat hall with a Telford organ, the society gave its first performance there on April 20th 1843, featuring extracts from Handel’s Messiah.

By the 1920s, the Antient Concert Rooms had begun to show films, although the premises still also played host to other performances and continued to have an orchestra pit. It was only fifty years ago that the building was completely converted tp a cinema, opening in April 1956 as the Embassy and later becoming the Academy, in which guise it remained until the late 1980s. During the mid-1950s the most serious changes were made to the original facade, when a new canopied entrance was added to the ground floor and a balcony inserted into the hall’s auditorium. Otherwise, the exterior remains that recorded in an engraving made soon after the building was first constructed in the 1820s.

The windows are exqusitely restored/replaced to the orginal specifications. There’s even the odd pane of crown glass in there:

All of the doors have been painted an elegant, what seems to be almost black green – perhaps an influence from the Royal College of Physcians’ recent restoration across the way. The railings have also been mended:

What a transformation from but a few years ago!

However not everything is quite as (cough)…rosy…

Thanks for those Graham. That oversized blight lurking behind the building is very depressing – saw it from the DART last week. How do the developers get away with building a floor higher than the protected structure? 😡

@Morlan wrote:

Thanks for those Graham. That oversized blight lurking behind the building is very depressing – saw it from the DART last week. How do the developers get away with building a floor higher than the protected structure? 😡

I have passed by it a few times and from the ground the rear building is not visible. That is probably why it was permitted.

Has the interior been finished appropriately , or is it just squared tiles on the ceilings with recessed lights?

It depends on your vantage point as to whether it is visible or not;

The new build is a little bulky but at least the developers restored the Academy to a very high standard and lets not forget that this building was the setting in a James Joyce short story

A little bulky? What an understatement. Its a lovely old facade with a mess behind it. No form, no sympathetic redesign of the site just a big bulk of bricks and mortar. A missed opportunity. Very much in keeping with the new Laughter Lounge on Eden Quay.

You are right it is OTT

how is Hamburg?

Was the grafitti from that moron “Grift” erased by the time of the second photo of the new development, or was it taken earlier?

edit: looking more closely, the first photo is obviously during construction.

good old grift, he lives up to his name. climbing that scaffold and all.

[HTML]how is Hamburg?[/HTML]

Very interesting. Perhaps i will write a post on it once I get to see more. Some really interesting comparisons with Dublin already.

I’m not so sure that the added bulk/height of the building behind the original facade is that much of a problem. As Dublin continues to develop land is going to become more valuable and so companies will seek increased densities and heights. And this can work quite will amongst historic buildings, indeed these sorts of contrasts are to be expected in a living modern city with plenty of existing historic architecture. Melbourne is an example of where Victorian/early 20th cent. buildings have been attractively combined with much larger contemporary offerings.

Alright, the building behind is a lump but this is probably the sort of trade off you’ll get for restoration in an increasingly crowded – development wise – city. Especially if more and more high density apartment dwellings are to be built in and around older parts of Dublin. But importantly, the lump behind seems to have no impact from the street.

The old and the new in Melbourne.

What a beautiful building…victorian ?

Nice photos of the Academy, Graham. It does seem to be a first-rate conservation job to the front.

I’m pretty sure there weren’t any sash windows left in it before restoration, so all of the windows must be new. Thus the old glass must also be replica or salvage. I’m a bit uneasy about this practice; the charm of old glass is that it survives by chance – an odd pane here and there, so falsifying its haphazard survival is a bit dubious.

Regarding the rear extension, while I would be the first to decry the greedy, artless shoving of an oversized new building up next to an older one (and there’s a fair bit of it happening these days), I think the result in this case is not too bad. The reason being that there is already a larger structure (the concert room/cinema) attached onto the rear of the classical, front portion of the building. It does look quite crude and bulky alright in that view from the Dart, but the impact from the street is not too bad.

I’d largely agree – the posting of the Loop Line image was a bit devious :). Trinity’s new building is also about to conceal most of it from here anyway (even if they’ll just get that hideous view instead from what is to be a flagship institution).
However that is not to excuse the lumpen nature of the setbacks, nor the ridiculous heritage roof plonked on top, crowned with air con units. A more refined job even using the same scale of the structure built would have made all the difference.

Just looking at Paul’s 1990s image, there’s definitely something strange going on with the original fabric of the building – a lot of materials must have been salvaged as Devin suggests:

There isn’t a sash left in the building, nor are there any railings or granite plinths and steps. Yet it’s clearly old glass in a great many window panes today, as it is definitely old granite forming most of the railing features! (though the curved sections flanking the steps seem to be new). Indeed even the railings have an historic quality to them. Very strange…

Also on Pearse Street, as mentioned above the extension of the Trinity Capital Hotel is now getting underway. The adjoining early Victorian houses are nearly finished externally, the upper floors and roofs anyway, and to a very high standard. Beautiful pointing especially. Haven’t had a chance to check out the real extension to the rear yet, though you can see it peeking over the parapet there…

those redbricks look lovely , but have the interiors been kept or gutted ?

on south anne street a whole row of shops have been gutted. With respect to that development , i don’t know what the state of the interiors was, so i can’t say that on the whole it wasn’t justified.

But on pearse street i would hope that the hotel was going to use the original interiors as ‘deluxe’ rooms or some such. Does anyone no for definite ?

That’s great ! but what about the extension to the trinity plaza hotel ? Was it a keep the facade and gut the rest job ?

@a boyle wrote:

That’s great ! but what about the extension to the trinity plaza hotel ? Was it a keep the facade and gut the rest job ?

I don’t think it is. I reckon by the looks of it they are being restored and integrated into the hotel. When the South Anne Street development was being prepared you could see the whole site empty behind the remaining facades (apart from the corner building, which was retained in its entirety). I don’t recall seeing these Pearse Street buildings being completely gutted at any stage.

The application numbers seem to be 3635/04 and 6060/04

I tried to link the second one of these here, but it was too long and wouldn’t work. It shoudl work if you put the above numbers into the planning search:

http://www.dublincity.ie/business_services/planning/planning_search/index.asp

it all look fine on the planning application. The returns have all been demolished (it doesn’t say how old or new they were) and the internal layout includes ‘minor’ changes. I would assume (hope) this mean breaking a door through here and there , but basically keeping the interior whole .

Perhaps there is someone who works nearby and has a better idea. They do look wonderfull from the outside though, so hopefully the interior is nice also.

in fact they look sublime.The brickwork is just lovely.

@jimg wrote:

I found this old photograph of Pearse St. while dicking about on the web:

It took quite a while for me to find my bearings with the photo as the corner building mirrors Doyles Pub across the street which I found very disorienting. The giveaway is the firestation tower in the background behind the wierd christmas tree thing or whatever it is.

Ok it’s a fairly trivial piece of knowledge but I found out what the “weird christmas tree thing” in the above photo is. It was called the Crampton Memorial and apparently Cosgrave’s Illustrated Dictionary of Dublin, has an entry:

I’m not sure why but I find it amusing on a number of levels.

I typed the above from a book called The Annals of Dublin Fair City by E E O’Donnell published in time for the millenium (the 1988 one!). I’d love to know more about Cosgrave’s Illustrated Dictionary of Dublin. There’s also a reference to it in John Finerty’s 19th century coffeetable book – Ireland in Pictures. I couldn’t resist buying a copy of the latter even though it’s available in a digitised form on the web. But besides that neither google nor abebooks revealed anything above what sounds like a fascinating book.

wonder what happened to it?

According to a small footnote in Yvonne Whelan’s Reinventing Modern Dublin it was removed in 1959. The reasons given are its poor condition at the time.

What a shame. Though it is of a design that lends itself to quite rapid deterioration; I’d imagine many of the ‘lilies’ came loose over time, and got clogged with dirt and general litter. It’s such a bizarre monument, espcially with “a bust of Cramption nestle[ing] in its foliage” 🙂

And people though the Floozy was weird?!

I wonder where it is now – surely (hopefully) someone wanted it as a bit of salvage…

Nos. 133 & 134 Pearse Street, opposite the Holiday Inn.

What is the fate of these two buildings?! They seem to be vacant. Every time I go past them they get slightly worse.

It’s very rare to find smaller-scaled post-Georgian buildings in almost completely original condition like this – original brickwork & pointing, roofs, chimney stacks, cast iron downpipes, sash windows with some old glass, panelled doors, simple but gorgeous timber Doric-columned doorcases & spoked fanlight, front steps & railings, even lime-plastered rubble-stone walls in the basement – very rare.

These pictures were taken about a year & a half ago. They’ve got slightly worse since then. I really worry about them. They’re not listed.

how can they not be listed ! ?
the quaint little fan lights are lovely.

Aren’t they just – most unusual. Apparently they date from 1848, which is just about possible. They look a bit earlier, but it’s probable an older design continued to be used in the by-then unfashionable city centre.

To shed a bit of light on the current state of these properties, they went up for auction way back in 2002 with guide prices nothing short of a song: No. 133 was offered for the grand total of €400,000, while No. 134 was put up for €450,000. The larger double-fronted property to the right was offered for a meagre €700,000.

The former pair in particular were in an appalling condition, hence the exceptionally low prices. Here you can see one of the stairwells, with ravishing 1960s wallpaper, hard-boarded balustrade, and salmon-painted lower walls.

© The Sunday Times

And sure what better way to bring a cable in than through a smashed window pane?

Most original features appear to have survived intact, if you wish to include Bakelite light switches and door knobs 🙂

At the time of their auction in 2002, the houses were offered for sale as separate entities, but it was thought likely that a developer would snap up all three given the attractive economies of restoring them as a group. I don’t know if this happened, or indeed if the houses sold at all. Presumably they did. Perhaps they were snapped up as a nice little speculative investment, with the intention of flogging them later on much-inflated? Goodness knows they’re worth a fortune now. Though I see in one of your pictures Devin that one of the doors is/was under restoration – a glimmer of life?

They contain a number of original fireplaces and early Victorian plaster ceilings. Some of the other original features comprised bits and bobs of religious paraphernalia 🙂

The council had been asked in writing to list them about 3 years ago, but they weren’t adding any more buildings to their RPS at the time as (they said) they didn’t have the administration and they could only barely manage their existing RPS.

they date from 1848

Yeah, would’ve said they were 1840s. Even though the Georgian reign strictly ended in 1830, the houses are still Georgian in every way, just simplified. Fascinating!

The Irish Times

One of the last substantial sites in Dublin’s south inner city looks set to be redeveloped as Trinity College prepares to embark on a joint venture with a private developer. The TCD Enterprise Centre covers almost five of the six acres between Macken Street, Pearse Street, Grand Canal Quay and the Dart line, and when redeveloped is likely to have well in excess of 92,903sq m (1 million sq ft) of academic research buildings, offices, retail facilities and apartments. Even before TCD has an opportunity to formally embark on the huge project, a half-acre site near the centre of the Enterprise Centre and fronting onto Grand Canal Harbour goes on the market today. Campion Property Consultants is seeking what it calls “a reasonable offer” for the extensive warehouse but has indicated that the owners, the Jordan family who for years supplied crockery to the hotel industry, will also consider a joint venture with “an experienced and asset-rich partner”. An adjoining building owned by the Connaghton family is the only other property in the area not under the control of TCD. The businessman Denis O’Brien owns the Esat office block on the edge of the site fronting onto Grand Canal Quay. All sides agree that the city planners will probably insist on an overall development plan for the site of almost six acres rather than allow individual owners to decide what they want to develop.

This is good news for the area as the existing must rank as one of the most inapprpriate buildings for a prominent city site.

@jimg wrote:

I’d love to know more about Cosgrave’s Illustrated Dictionary of Dublin. There’s also a reference to it in John Finerty’s 19th century coffeetable book – Ireland in Pictures. I couldn’t resist buying a copy of the latter even though it’s available in a digitised form on the web. But besides that neither google nor abebooks revealed anything above what sounds like a fascinating book.

There are several copies of the book-unfortunately for reference only-in the ‘Dublin and Irish Collection’ in Pearse Street Public Library, only a stones through from the buildings being discussed.

There is a very big hole in the ground where work has started on this development

http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=3293/06

Just wondering if anyone has any pics of how finished product is going to look?

donal 0: clicking on the view documents tab on the link you provided leads you to some cg pictures

Thanks, I knew that but nothing happening there for me, its just a list of docs, nothing opens when they are clicked. Are they opening for others?

click to highlight and then click the view button, at least that works for me

Twas me feckin pop-up blocker messin around, cheers

What do you think of it: I approve of it in principle because I work at TCD and like the area to gather education related institutions. The building looks impressive to me, but I haven’t the knack of judging from plans. It certainly makes the winter garden look like dross, which is what it is!

From a completely non-architectural expert point of view…. yeah I think it looks good, though it possibly looks a bit too bulky from the east, a bit like the academy further along does from the west. Maybe lopping a floor off the top would help?

What was really annoying about the Academy, apart from the excessive bulk was, having made a nice job of the facade, they gave no attention at all to the other elevations, they did the pretend-anything-set-back-can-be-treated-as-invisible trick; this building seems better in this regard.

12/4/2008

The worst of all possible scenarios aside from wholescale demolition has come to pass in respect of the fomerly delightful pair of classical townhouses at No. 133 and No. 134 Pearse Street, as catalogued above this time last year.

The pictures below serve to demonstrate the disastrous consequences of an historic building not being protected.

2002

2008

These completely unique transitional style houses as built within the old city boundary have been utterly mauled.

Every single facet of their original fabric and detailing aside from the actual brick facade has been ripped out and replaced with ignorant, cumbersome and thoroughly offensive replicas.

The greatest crime of all has been the complete loss of the original charmingly diminutive doorcases, as recorded by Devin earlier.

© Devin

Not even the simple spoked fanlights with original glass escaped the heavy hand of this ‘luxury restoration’,

Shockingly, every part of these unique entrance doors has been replaced with a laughably clunky replica.

A satirised Downing Street comes to Dublin, complete with raised and fielded 18th century panels.

The columns appear to be cast from sections of painted Wavin pipe.

Meanwhile the windows, oh mercy the windows…

The absence of glazing bars, the double glazing, the beading, the horns, the catches, the total loss of original frames and shimmering glass – mammy make it go away, please….

Bye bye original simple spoked railings, hello well – what exactly?

High Victoriana crossed with a fire escape.

Bolted with a decorative flourish. Lovely touch.

Meanwhile up on the roof, all of the orginal natural slating has been removed and replaced with synthethic muck.

Indeed it would appear the roof structure hasn’t even been investigated, while the chimneys continue to rot as ever. Also as can be seen, the brickwork has been brashly repointed, although al least it’s lime mortar.

I simply dread to think what has happened inside. not least as it was proposed initially to significantly extend the rear, plonk a mansard roof on top, and squeeze six apartments onto the site, before being refused by DCC on grounds of over-development, lack of open space and non-compliance with minimum apartment sizes. Critically, there’s absolutely no reference online to any of these recent works acquiring planning permission.

There is now not a single one of these houses left in its original condition on Pearse Street. You have to round the corner onto Sandwith Street to find just one of these little gems straggling on out of two full terraces.

How long before this too succumbs to developer treatment?

What a loss.

© Devin

What a hatchet job. Sadly, i think you’re correct Graham, they have actually used what are, lets call a spade a spade, shite pipes for pillars. No doubt the interior is destroyed with the same level of malignant disrespect.

So dare I say, who owns no.s 133 & 134 Pearse Street ? who is responsible ? For all the good you do DCC, you are so heavily undermined by allowing this blatant destruction.

The little fella around the corner is lovely, i hope it survives.

Thanks as usual for posting Graham. (that fiesta has no chance of getting outta there;))

Graham, 10 out of 10 on the doors… yes actual lurid orange plastic wavin pipes! While under construction I used walk past agog at the sight

Adding insult to injury, the windows are top-hung. This butchering has been a source of horrific entertainment to me on the bus into the city centre every weekend for the last few months. I think I missed the construction of the sewage pipe doorcases though.

@GrahamH wrote:

the double glazing,

What are the people inside supposed to do, freeze?

@malec wrote:

What are the people inside supposed to do, freeze?

Good sash windows with shutters can be just as efficient as double glaze … never mind the fact that double glaze in period structures often causes moisture build & damp – older buildings need to breath.

Ah sure we might as well rip out the ranks of 18th century sashes in Castletown while we’re at it so!

1) Reconditioning of windows to tighten gaps
2) Draught-proofing
3) Secondary glazing
4) Shutters
5) Heavy curtains
6) Strategic placement of radiators

@d_d_dallas wrote:

Graham, 10 out of 10 on the doors… yes actual lurid orange plastic wavin pipes! While under construction I used walk past agog at the sight

Feck OFF!!! 😮

Unbelievable. I didn’t think such a new low was possible in this city.

I was wondering how they managed it given free-stranding Georgian doorcases aren’t exactly an off-the-shelf product, and knocking against the ‘columns’ I presumed the hollow ring to be of cheap fibreglass or similar.
But never feckin sewage pipes boxed in plywood!

If only such ingenuity could be channelled in the right direction. Truly a new low.

Hate to say it but the letting board says it all.

Anyone that markets Pre63 45 years later doesn’t really exhibit a great deal of imagination.

23/7/2010

The attractive group of buildings at Nos. 51-54 Pearse Street and structures to the rear have just been restored and expanded as the premises of architectural practice Henry J. Lyons, designed by, well, Henry J. Lyons. It recently won Best Commercial Building in the IAA awards 2010.

The conservation report as submitted in 2008 appears to have been drafted by Arthur Gibney before his death, perhaps originating from one of the earlier applications for the site. It stands out a mile as a sadly rare example of an architectural heritage consultant who knows what they’re talking about, and is passionate about what they’re talking about. It is thoroughly well-informed, bedded in comparative analysis, and confident in observation. In fact, with the notable exception of Cathal Crimmins, it’s hard to think of many others who produce this quality of work in Dublin anymore.

The Pearse Street buildings bear a remarkable resemblance in date, design, function and morphology to the newly restored collection of buildings at Nos. 58-61 Lower Mount Street.

Both groups initially emerged as residential townhouses, both were altered in the mid-19th century with a central infill building on a formerly vacant site incorporating a carriage arch, both were unified into a singular composition, and both served as a major commercial premises.

As perfectly surmised by Gibney, the structures on Pearse Street “are a strange collage of architectural intentions, utilitarian expression and building interventions. […] Their current expression is essentially the result of changing patterns of use and interventions to fulfill specific functional purposes. Their special historic interest lies in their typological importance as a rare surviving example of a late 19th century workshop evolved from the mutation of a number of former house buildings with a builders yard.” Precisely the assessment we didn’t get over on Mount Street.

When we look at Nos. 51-54, we are looking at three individual buildings that have experienced varying degrees of amalgamation.

The bookend houses at each end are the oldest, built in the 1840s as residential dwellings in line with many of the other classically-informed modest houses built along the thoroughfare in the second quarter of the 19th century. The central, then vacant, plot was the site and/or entrance to the timber yard and offices of builders Crowe and Son, with the house to the right being acquired for their use. They sold out their interest in all the properties in 1873, probably to more builders.

We are not told when the central part of the building was infilled, other than, unsurprisingly, ‘later in the 19th century’.

I think we can be a little more precise in pinning it to the late 1850s, judging by the juxtapositioning of newfangled two-over-two sash windows with older Georgian grids positioned above. The notoriously bizarrely proportioned Georgian central feature window with squat panes of glass was born through later alteration, namely the shopfront.

The central and right-hand houses were both heavily amalgamated, presumably when the central building was built in the 1850s. They feature a highly unusual structural system of piers and supports of an industrial nature to the interior, coupled with equally idiosyncratic Victorian plasterwork of a type not comparable elsewhere in the city. The online photographs are difficult to make out, but from Gibney’s description they appear to use complex layering of cast plasterwork in a manner suggestive of merchant builders exploiting newly available plaster products in an innovative way. The staircase hall for example appears to feature a heavy cornice supported by enormous cast corbels on the walls. The boardroom upstairs is also heavily embellished, while joinery is of a neoclassical character – perhaps Edwardian.

In spite of the 1875 date tablet above the entrance, the likely origins of the handsome stucco shopfront, with its order of Doric pilasters and sombre entablature, is actually 1899 when J. & C. McLaughlin, the famous Dublin engineers, founders and art metal workers, took over the premises, moving from only a few doors down on Pearse Street. 1875 probably refers to the establishment date of the company. McLaughlin’s remained here right up until 1970 when the James Healy foundry kept the trade going a little longer into the final years of the 20th century.

We can see above how the late addition of the shopfront skewed the proportionality of the central window with its odd square panes, where presumably it was another two-ver-two before this. Perhaps the adoption of the Georgian model was an attempt to hide the window’s botched relationship to the flanking windows by making it more of a decorative feature of the façade. It was also a cheap conversion: the top sash it is not segment-headed, but a regular, squared sash lurking behind the brick arch.

The refined detailing of the shopfront is exquisite in its elegant simplicity.

The ground floor of No. 54, one of the original houses.

A scrolled end corbel.

A fun and non-invasive use of stenciling that harks back to the buildings’ former light industrial function.

Newly cleaned and pointed granite with attractive cast-iron grille.

Many of the railings appear to be newly cast – perfect to the 1840s. A lovely eggshell sheen.

The tuck pointing is highly accomplished. One of the top three re-pointed yellow brick buildings in Dublin. Finally we know what we’re at with pointing!

The stopping mortar is the perfect earthy colour. This is all so good you wouldn’t even realise it was restored. The ultimate benchmark.

Interestingly, when the middle building was built, its brick courses could presumably only be matched to one of the two flanking houses, hence why the pointing of the right-hand house at No. 54 ties in perfectly, but is entirely different in levels at No. 51. No. 54 was also in the possession of Crowe’s at the time the infill took place.

One of the most transforming spin-offs from this restoration has been the skillful removal of render from the upper façade of No. 51 (below), which has probably been applied in the 1920s. Luckily it appears to have walked off the soft brickwork. Its removal enabled the restoration to the terrace’s unified state of J. & C. McLaughlin’s alterations of 1899. The beautiful streetscape effect we have today could not have been realised otherwise.

Of course, as seen above, this restoration comprises part of a much larger new-build extension and apparent conversion of workshops for expansive studios, library and ancillary facilities, largely divided from the Pearse Street buildings by way of an atrium. This is naturally the main focus of the development, but as we don’t have access or pictures, we can’t really say much, other than judge by the glossy photographs and descriptions on the IAA page. Very dynamic and typically HJL Corporate TM, as workspaces they seem carefully and freshly designed. The linear emphasis of the studio is lovely and sharp.

I’m not sure if all of the new mega-block on Pearse Street is part of the same development, but either way it looks to be by HJL.

The materials and some of the concepts are attractive, but the executive clothing doesn’t hide the fact that it’s too big and too busy. The anonymity of the entrance also does it no favours, while leaving matters to canvas banners to declare a presence on the street is deeply unsatisfactory. Take these transient elements of non-architecture out of the equation, or even look at the building head-on, and one is left with an expressionless block – a giant pair of sunglasses stranded on the corner that doesn’t know where it is, and people don’t know what it is to help it on its way to feck off somewhere else.

It is discernable how the character of this stretch of streetscape has now changed, where once the unified, if compromised, composition of Nos. 51-54 served as the signature building along here. By all accounts hierarchies can change, but not in such a crude manner, where scale alone takes over as an all-consuming factor, rather than design merit. It is frustrating to see such an arrogantly scaled, blob of darkness steal the limelight from a distinguished set piece that has graciously served this street for 150 years. Smaller and simpler, it could and should have been better.

‘It is frustrating to see such an arrogantly scaled, blob of darkness steal the limelight from a distinguished set piece that has graciously served this street for 150 years. Smaller and simpler, it could and should have been better.’

Ah, Graham, passion and erudition – other bloggers please note. And excellent pics to boot!

Here are some of the buildings involved in that scheme – Nos. 47-54 – before work:

The protected structures Nos. 51-54.

And the two buildings at the corner of Magennis Place. HJ Lyons had refurbished here for their offices 10 years ago. Powder coated aluminium windows and a granite-glad ground floor were put in these buildings, and a new building was built down the lane.

Drawing here of the Pearse Street & Magennis Place frontages before development – http://www.dublincity.ie/AnitePublicDocs/00023887.pdf

So now the two corner buildings and the derilict ones between them and the protected structures have been redeveloped. I think the new building is a sucessful addition. The scale ok with the location opposite the train station, and that there are big buildings on the opposite side of the street. It would of course be a ghastly intrusion into, say, Westland Row, but it’s not problematic in this location imo. Like the reducing pier things in jura limestone. The planning ref. was 3293/06.

They were naughty after they got permission for the main block and saw where they’d get with a planning application to stick a glass penthouse on top of the protected structures, removing pitched roofs and chimneys, but it was refused – Ref. 5155/07.

A nice refurbishment of the protected structures. But a darker colour should have been maintained for the sash windows. There are too many white sash windows in Dublin!

In pavement reinsatement works, the listed granite kerbing along the frontage of the site has been removed and replaced in white granite in breach of Policy H22 of the Dublin City Development Plan 2005-11 which will “preserve, repair and retain in situ historic streetscape and paving features which are of heritage value and which are located in those areas identified in the Development Plan.” (Pearse Street is identified). As well as being in breach of the development plan, the removal of granite in this location:

• replaces a good quality, local material with an inferior quality, non-local one
• introduces inconsistency where there was consistency
• is unecessary as the traditional granite kerbing is very serviceable and capable of meeting modern requirements
• contributes to incremental loss of historic fabric and character in the city

It’s a pretty bizarre state of affairs when the body responsible for ensuring the preservation of something – Dublin City Council – is removing and replacing it with something different.

What’s more, the City Council did an environmental improvement scheme on Pearse Street back in 2004 which actively maintained and incorporated the surviving areas of historic kerbing, including this section of the street. It’s really f***ed up. Maybe if they don’t want to preserve it they should just get rid of the policy ….

And of course a minor detail but the bollards are different to those elsewhere on the street.
Speaking of the Pearse Street works….the old lampstands still remain in a number of places while the roll out of the newer style (seen above) seemed to just stop…..
Got bored?

Stephen, the reason I think was that the enhancement scheme that was done in the mid-noughties (which those lamps date to) was confined to a certain area of Pearse Street – ie. in and around the Gibert Library. It was done as a project between the QBN office and DCC City Architects department while a bus lane was being installed along Pearse Street, so as to deliver an integrated design. Leaflet attached below.

It’s a pity resources could not extend to application of such partnership arrangements between the QBN office and DCC City Architects for subsequent installation of bus corridors in other, less important locales of the city ……. like College Green.

How do you know it didn’t take place for College Green:o

Two spanking new additions to Pearse Street which seem to have elicited little or no comment here. Are there any Archiseekers still out there….?

First up its the new Biosciences Building which looms large over the Pearse Street skyline. Surprisingly from street level it has a very satisfactory appeal. Its very urban, well proportioned (I think) and really quite a nice addition to this fast changing street.

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Generous public domain

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I love this side elevation….looked great in the light

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by StephenC » 24 Aug 2011 14:21

Two spanking new additions to Pearse Street which seem to have elicited little or no comment here. Are there any Archiseekers still out there….?

First up its the new Biosciences Building which looms large over the Pearse Street skyline. Surprisingly from street level it has a very satisfactory appeal. Its very urban, well proportioned (I think) and really quite a nice addition to this fast changing street.

Generous public domain

I love this side elevation….looked great in the light

Looks great I have to say. Just fixed some tags for you 🙂

This is the DART line from the top floor of the Biosciences Bldg, it has a pleasingly urban area, well edge of urban area look to it:

Thanks! I was just getting around to it. I have some images of the new LIR as well.

So here is Lir – the National Academy for Dramatic Arts

This is veeery nice

If I have one comment on the street its fix the feckin public lighting! The scheme put in in 2006 remains unfinished all the way from College Green into Irishtown. It looks a mess.