Re-Georgianise Dublin?

Buildings are a product of their times. Georgian (and indeed most pre 20th century ‘classic’ periods and styles) are based on a great inequality of wealth that allowed the construction of extremely fine pieces of architecture- from which we could learn many lessons- while the majority of the population live in much more plain dwellings, or at worst squalid slums. I dont believe you can separate the style from the society, and to be honest it is not a society i would like to recreate.

To do any justice to a full Georgian rebuilding, the costs would be astronomical and would not serve the needs of the city as a whole. Money that needs to be spent on public transport, social/affordable housing, public space etc. etc. should not be used to recreate a rose-tinted vision of the past.

You know when a city / country is screwed when you try to go backwards and glorify the past.

If anything big bold modern ideas and vision is required.

There is a very simple answer to this one….

No.

I love georgian as much as the next archiseeker, but it is a very poor reflection of the state of creativity, invention or willingness for progress in society if, instead of learning from or “taking inspiration from” the successes and failures of the past, we just decide to copy them in the dumbest way possible.

There was a good programme on BBC 2 last night about the fine Georgian city of Bath in England. After the Luftwaffe had deliberately flattened parts of it, it was rebuilt with the streets reinstated. But it also suffered too at the hands of developers from the 1960’s onwards. New dvelopments are hindered today because of the awful developments that sprung up, where fine streets were demolished and the likes of the ILAC shopping centre built. Very similar to Dublin, but I suppose that’s where we got our cue. Some developers and architects in Britain today complain that Bath is no more than a stagnant museum.

A stagnant museum that far more people would like to live in than, say, Slough.

I don’t agree that Dublin should be completely re-Georgianized – look to Berlin for an example of how to make a hugely impressive and well designed modern city on the pattern of an older city. But in Berlin they also know when it’s occasionally appropriate to reinstate older buildings, and I think that the ESB building is an appropriate place to reinstate what was there before.

A lot more can be done to make the most oft he Georgian architecture that is still there, so, that should be the priority.

However I kinda like the idea of recobbling a lot of the streets that have been paved over.

baiting cathal dunne? you’ve caught your fish already anyhow.

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

A stagnant museum that far more people would like to live in than, say, Slough.

I don’t agree that Dublin should be completely re-Georgianized – look to Berlin for an example of how to make a hugely impressive and well designed modern city on the pattern of an older city. But in Berlin they also know when it’s occasionally appropriate to reinstate older buildings, and I think that the ESB building is an appropriate place to reinstate what was there before.

agree 100% …

@spoil_sport wrote:

There is a very simple answer to this one….

No.

I love georgian as much as the next archiseeker, but it is a very poor reflection of the state of creativity, invention or willingness for progress in society if, instead of learning from or “taking inspiration from” the successes and failures of the past, we just decide to copy them in the dumbest way possible.

Well what I was thinking was that we could enhance the city centre by re-styling it on much more Georgian lines while allowing space for the new, creative and progressive ideas down in the Docklands. I remember reading once on this site that one of the great things about Dublin in times gone by was the architectural unity of its city centre. Surely it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to bring some of that unity back?

Cathal, I’m in foul humour, so I’ll say this only thrice more:

No, No, No!

I cannot, as a dedicated, progressive architect, accept your proposition that if it was done better before, we should do it that way again. Unity does not mean replication, nor segregation of old and new, centre and docks, etc. I know where you are coming from, because I fully accept that some qualites of the city have been diminished by unscrupulous building. Georgian architecture was, when done right, rather special, but as far as I’m concerned taking a step backward is not the answer. What’s done is done, the best way is forward, and to believe that we can do better. (Or at least something almost as good)

cajual: you really need to get away from the quasi-political psychobabble; do we not have a more unequal society now than at any time since WW II? Most well-meaning attempts at social engineering through architecture have ended up as repetitive exercises in systems-building for the masses while the architects retire to Shady Nook in the suburbs to get away from the tedium of it all.
Of course, you can’t ‘go back’ to Georgian, but in a historic city centre it would be no bad thing to reflect on ‘Georgian’ principles of proportion, order and presentation. ‘Progressive’ means neither good quality nor good townscape. As Miss Jean Brodie said (paraphrased): ‘I have no desire to go to a progressive, that is crank, school’. There are too many cranks populating the ranks of design these days, I’m afraid. A careful reflection on what has gone before might induce some humility and better practice.

@johnglas wrote:

cajual: you really need to get away from the quasi-political psychobabble; do we not have a more unequal society now than at any time since WW II? Most well-meaning attempts at social engineering through architecture have ended up as repetitive exercises in systems-building for the masses while the architects retire to Shady Nook in the suburbs to get away from the tedium of it all.
Of course, you can’t ‘go back’ to Georgian, but in a historic city centre it would be no bad thing to reflect on ‘Georgian’ principles of proportion, order and presentation. ‘Progressive’ means neither good quality nor good townscape. As Miss Jean Brodie said (paraphrased): ‘I have no desire to go to a progressive, that is crank, school’. There are too many cranks populating the ranks of design these days, I’m afraid. A careful reflection on what has gone before might induce some humility and better practice.

I just find it interesting that when people advocate replicating a particular style, the social context which is neccessary to produce that style is totally taken out of contex, Sure, the Greeks built the Parthenon, the Romans the Pantheon, Hausmann’s Paris, The Georgian Cities of Britain etc, but at what human cost? The inequality in society neccessary to execute these projects would not be acceptable today.

Having said that, there are undoubtedly lessons to be learned from the Georgian typology- like you say, proportion, rythm and streetscape, entrances, flexibilty, density etc….

But it still remains the case that we have today a very unequal society and, while you cannot abstract architecture from its social context, a mere adherence to a vision of ‘the future’ (neither quite today nor quite the past) will really guarantee nothing. We need to reflect hard hard about context and urban morphology and the legacy (even as yet unbuilt) that we will leave. The peripheral car-dependant housing schemes (sorry, ‘estates’) on the urban fringe may occasionally be ‘pleasant’ but is that a sustainable (OK, jargon, buzz-word) gift to the future? Combined with the emiseration and banalisation of much of the visible town centre, it hardly marks us out as very competent, never mind inspired.

I’m not getting into the social argument, but I absolutely agree with s_s, Johnglas etc. you don’t go backwards, unless it’s to learn something better and then more forwards again.. Repair damaged streetscapes yes, but we need better contemporary architecture, not some alternative to contemporary architecture.

But just on this ‘Georgian’ thing, I came across an interesting council estate in Deptford recently. Deptford is a wanton hole of a place (no offence intended) on the outskirts of London, but early in the 18th century it used to be a decent town with two fine English Baroque churches and several goods streets of early Georgian houses. It’s prosperity was based on the naval docks and the ship building industry. It’s the place where Grinling Gibbons was a chippy before being discovered by Evelyn and Wren.

Today unfortunately, Deptford is scarred by urban decay, Dublin standards of shopfront replacement and huge dismal council estates, but one GLC estate stands out a mile.

I don’t know anything about this estate other than it looks like Holles Street Hospital vintage neo-Georgian and it is huge, but I can tell you it was remakably well maintained and pretty clearly it’s a place that is well liked by it’s residents.

Maybe part of the appeal of this estate was just that it resembled middle class Chelsea, or it was ‘familiar’ in a nostalgic sense, but maybe it has to do with the human scale and the softer materials, the care in the design, the attention to detail, or even just the room for trees.

I should have taken pictures of the contrasting estates around it, but it was getting late and anyway we can always go on Google-earth to get an idea.

It’s brick! Plain and simple. And good brick. We have lost the art of The Good Brick, and we need it back. Much of the hankering for Georgiana stems from the use of mellow brick as a facing material. The general hatred of the glossy, machine-precisioned brick pastiche schemes of the 1980s and 1990s stands in stark contrast to the mellow equivalents of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Okay, the latter also employed better design, or should that be design, but the quality of the brickwork alone makes these schemes stand head and shoulders above their modern-day successors.

Brick has so much to offer contemporary design, something which is only very slowly being woken up to on this island. A good brick, combined with good craftsmanship, a good design and a human scale, can easily reach and go beyond the appeal of the 18th century’s efforts.

@GrahamH wrote:

Brick has so much to offer contemporary design, something which is only very slowly being woken up to on this island.

How do you make that out?
Most of the best contemporary work in the country utilises brick, going back well over a decade. I could do a list, but it’d be very long, and very obvious.

Well exactly… :confused:

@GrahamH wrote:

Well exactly… :confused:

You said it was only slowly being woken up to: it’s not.
Good architects in this country have been using brick well since the building boom began.

What you’re asking for is bad designers to use brick, for brick’s sake. It doesn’t mean they’ll use it well. Just like any other material.

In fact, all!! you’re asking for is a good quality material, a good designer to decide how to use that material, and a good craftsman to put the material in place.

I suggest your solution to the problem is somewhat obvious GrahamH.

Not as such, as to use brick well is something of a craft. It is easier, both for architect and builder, to apply a rank of granite tiles than it is to model brick into attractive forms and manage the myriad detailing and specification that is demanded of a polished and creative finish.

Yes good architects have been using brick well, but not often. On an industry-wide level, good brick buildings barely feature on the radar outside of traditional format residential development – the material being associated with the comfort zone of the 1990s, and prior to the cost of using the material skyrocketing in the later crazy years. It has not been a quality urban material of the past decade.

Large-scale quality residential exercises predominantly of brick are not common, and are extremely rare in the commercial sector. As for the centre of Dublin, you can almost forget it. Yes one can list off a number, but relative to the morass of other development, they are a drop in the ocean. It is growing though, agreed. Thankfully.

I’m with you pretty much across the board there Graham, it’s a fantastic material and a brilliant module for the creation of the human scale that Georgian architecture is noted for.

I would love for there to be more well designed brick buildings around the city, most of my favourite contemporary buildings are made of brick: The Urban Beehive, Timberyard Housing, Reuben Street; all fantastic examples of how the material can be used.

But you undo your own arguments at the very mention of the suburban housing estates that abuse the homogenous nature of the material. If you put bricks in the wrong hands you’ll end up with some very fugly buildings.

In a perfect world I’d love to see a bricky solution to alot of Dublin’s aesthetic problems, but it’s naive to think that every designer would put the material to as beautiful use as some of the aforementioned examples.

I have to agree with Graham my view of the use of brick in general in Dublin has been in the main based on the fact for a long time brick was cheap; hung over brickies were cheap and it didn’t offend planners.

[url=http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?search=1&s[cc_id]=ct1&s[search_type]=sale&s[a_id]=ga1&s[furn]=&s[refreshmap]=1&offset=20&limit=10&search_type=sale&id=463448]http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?search=1&s[cc_id]=ct1&s[search_type]=sale&s[a_id]=ga1&s[furn]=&s[refreshmap]=1&offset=20&limit=10&search_type=sale&id=463448[/url]

and the avoidance of brick as being over large sections as being

[url=http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?search=1&s[cc_id]=ct1&s[search_type]=sale&s[a_id]=ga1&s[furn]=&s[refreshmap]=1&offset=100&limit=10&search_type=sale&id=435902]http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?search=1&s[cc_id]=ct1&s[search_type]=sale&s[a_id]=ga1&s[furn]=&s[refreshmap]=1&offset=100&limit=10&search_type=sale&id=435902[/url]

Compare this to London

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-23241298.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE%5E2768&minBedrooms=2&maxBedrooms=3&minPrice=900000&maxPrice=3000000&displayPropertyType=houses&radius=3.0&oldDisplayPropertyType=houses&pageNumber=1&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DOUTCODE%255E2768%26minBedrooms%3D2%26maxBedrooms%3D3%26minPrice%3D900000%26maxPrice%3D3000000%26displayPropertyType%3Dhouses%26radius%3D3.0%26oldDisplayPropertyType%3Dhouses

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-26708849.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE%5E2768&minBedrooms=2&maxBedrooms=3&minPrice=900000&maxPrice=3000000&displayPropertyType=houses&radius=3.0&oldDisplayPropertyType=houses&pageNumber=4&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DOUTCODE%255E2768%26minBedrooms%3D2%26maxBedrooms%3D3%26minPrice%3D900000%26maxPrice%3D3000000%26displayPropertyType%3Dhouses%26radius%3D3.0%26oldDisplayPropertyType%3Dhouses%26index%3D30

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/new-homes/property-12687204.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE%5E2768&minBedrooms=2&maxBedrooms=3&minPrice=900000&maxPrice=3000000&displayPropertyType=flats&radius=3.0&oldDisplayPropertyType=flats&newHome=true&pageNumber=4&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DOUTCODE%255E2768%26minBedrooms%3D2%26maxBedrooms%3D3%26minPrice%3D900000%26maxPrice%3D3000000%26displayPropertyType%3Dflats%26radius%3D3.0%26oldDisplayPropertyType%3Dflats%26newHome%3Dtrue%26index%3D30

There is some really good bespoke work being done by the usual suspects; sadly half the stuff built never has an architect within a mile of it

Are you a property salesman PVCKing?
Fairly random selection of properties on offer there!

I’m agreeing with both of you on the value of the material; it’s brilliant.
But in the wrong hands it will be abused, no matter what legislation or guidelines are put in place.

Spent yesterday getting comps as a favour for someone; had a good look at W8!! Thankfully I don’t sell anything There was a massive correlation between architectural quality and price albeit that better locations tended to have better design

foremanjoe: beautiful typo – ‘fugly’. Does it stand for ‘f*****g ugly’?

@johnglas wrote:

foremanjoe: beautiful typo – ‘fugly’. Does it stand for ‘f*****g ugly’?

It’s not a typo, it’s a neologism: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fugly

Get with the programme!

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

I was walking down Leeson St the other day on the way to Ranelagh and the idea struck me, why don’t we adopt a plan to re-Georgianise the streets of the centre of Dublin?

One example would be on Fitzwilliam [Street].

There are only a tiny number of examples where it is truly justifiable in Dublin. You could probably count them on the fingers of one hand. The ESB Fitzw Street is one, for sure.

Replacement of the Victorian building at one end of the Gandon Georgian crescent, Beresford Place, with a facsimile of the original would be another.

Any others?

De informed view now is that cities are enriched by architecture of different periods.

Biggest problem IME is architects who don’t know to build in historic settings … or ones who think plonking a glass box on top of an historic building enriches its history (give me strength !!!!!)

(and I mean street buildings as opposed to warehouses, docks buildings and the like)

@Devin wrote:

There are only a tiny number of examples where it is truly justifiable in Dublin. You could probably count them on the fingers of one hand. The ESB Fitzw Street is one, for sure.

Replacement of the Victorian building at one end of the Gandon Georgian crescent, Beresford Place, with a facsimile of the original would be another.

Any others?

De informed view now is that cities are enriched by architecture of different periods.

Biggest problem IME is architects who don’t know to build in historic settings … or ones who think plonking a glass box on top of an historic building enriches its history (give me strength !!!!!)

(and I mean street buildings as opposed to warehouses, docks buildings and the like)

it would be great to see a modern resi development of the quality of that Deptford one above laid out around Hardwicke/Temmple street, Would also love to see something similar done around Blackhall Street.

I always think of Dutch and Flemish cities when this topic comes up. Ghent is a particularly fine example where 500 years of basic nterpretations of the townhouse building model coexist maginificently.

Fugly, fuglier, fugliest! Love it. Isn’t language wonderful? – and that goes for the language of brick as well: the most ‘human’ building material ever ‘invented’, and in stark contrast to exposed concrete. An apt metaphor for the different approaches to domestic architecture in the 18th and 20thCs.

Has anyone ever used brick as formwork for in situ concrete?

I know it makes very little sense on any level, apart from a purely experimental one!

@Devin wrote:

There are only a tiny number of examples where it is truly justifiable in Dublin. You could probably count them on the fingers of one hand. The ESB Fitzw Street is one, for sure.

Replacement of the Victorian building at one end of the Gandon Georgian crescent, Beresford Place, with a facsimile of the original would be another.

Any others?

But what about all those blocks of flats built along the quays during the first flushes of the Celtic Tiger? Surely they would look better if they had a proper Georgian facade rather than the ones they have now?

De informed view now is that cities are enriched by architecture of different periods.

But wasn’t it also the informed view that places like Ballymun were the model of future suburban living. Wasn’t it also the informed view that brutalist architecture would be the way forward? Wasn’t it also the informed view that it would be better to get rid of our rail and tram infrastructure and focus on making our towns and cities more car-friendly?

“But wasn’t it also the informed view that places like Ballymun were the model of future suburban living. Wasn’t it also the informed view that brutalist architecture would be the way forward? Wasn’t it also the informed view that it would be better to get rid of our rail and tram infrastructure and focus on making our towns and cities more car-friendly?”

No, it was the informed view that Ballymun was the best way of doing things AT THE TIME, infact, the ballymun flats were to the highest standards including many mos-cons that their european counterparts did not have.
Likewise, brutalism was the in thing AT THE TIME, I don’t think any proponent of brutalism would have told you they would still be building in the brutalist style in 50 years. And what is wrong with brutalism anyway?
But suggesting that these styles failed as a reason to retreat to georgian really is shooting yourself in the foot. As with ballymun, and brutalism, there are likewise reasons why people stopped building in the georgian style. That reason simply is that the architecture of a particular time reflects the society that made it. Georgian, as already mentioned earlier in the thread was a product of an unequal society, the ballymun flats, if you ignore the subsequent history of them, were an aspiration towards a fairer and more equal society, they souht to give people more light, air and space that they had previously experienced in inner-city slums.
The celtic tiger era buildings along the quays are case in point, flash, shiny expressions of quick cash. And while that presents its own problems, it is at least a record of what we once had (a false, inflated impression of wealth, rather than the real thing)
Your argument is essentially that georgian looks better, and to that extent, I actually agree with you, but I suppose my argument essentially is that if we do just say Georgain was the the “proper” way of doing things, those georgians, they really hit the nail on the head there, lets leave it at that… then that would put me out of a job….. if I had one…..

@spoil_sport wrote:

That reason simply is that the architecture of a particular time reflects the society that made it. Georgian, as already mentioned earlier in the thread was a product of an unequal society, the ballymun flats, if you ignore the subsequent history of them, were an aspiration towards a fairer and more equal society, they souht to give people more light, air and space that they had previously experienced in inner-city slums.

Well this is drivel for a start. It might be true to suggest that historical and ideological development influenced the prevailing architecture of different periods, but this is not logically the same thing as saying those ideologies and those types of architecture are necessarily linked. If a couple of things had happened differently over the course of the vastness of time, it might have come to pass that the aristocracy of Dublin would have built Ballymun-type flats for themselves in the 18th century. There are certain types of architecture which are apparently eternally aesthetically pleasing – we can still appreciate the Parthenon or Notre Dame cathedral – and if the prevailing opinion of an age is that they are still utterly beautiful, then the only thing which prevents people from imitating them is the poisonous influence of postmodern architectural intellectuals who’ve been screwing up the world and human society for the last century. They can’t accept that some things are just intrinsically beautiful, and they have to attempt to deconstruct traditional ideas of beauty and order while creating completely cretinous new ones, and impossibly ugly cities as expressions of them.

And of course your entire argument hinges on the historical situatedness of all architectural ideas, while failing to submit your own ideas to the consequences of such situatedness as a rigorous argument would do. Aren’t your own ideas themselves a product of our age? And isn’t one of the prevailing and completely idiosyncratic ideas of our age – among crippled architectural intellectuals at least – that “pastiche” is the spawn of the antichrist? If the Victorians believed that how much great architecture would never have been built? Because they would have attempted instead, as our age is doing, to force a new architecture (or more exactly 100 million of them) which has no link to common people and very little of which will last a century let alone 2,000 years.

ideals of beauty change with fashion. there is no formal absolute.

new fashions often appear offensive. the language has to be understood before a judgement can be made.

And isn’t one of the prevailing and completely idiosyncratic ideas of our age – among crippled architectural intellectuals at least – that “pastiche” is the spawn of the antichrist?

rumpelstilstkin: as we say here: ‘G’awn yersel’!’ (i.e. ‘Go on yourself!’). Get the boot in. It’s not so much postmodernism as modernism that’s the problem. Modernism is just one historical style among all the rest and is now as redundant (or relevant) as any of them. The failure to understand that and to avoid ‘pastiche’ (i.e. anything pre-modernist) has led to the present deconstructionist (i.e. children’s nursery) ‘style’, along with blobs and whatever else you’re having yourself.
Ballymun may have been an attempt at equality (for the working classes), but visually it was of the lowest common denominator variety. In fact it was about providing all mod cons, but the envelope was irrelevant.

The futility of this argument pains me. As, even as dumb and as childish a resolution as it sounds, it is a question of taste and style. This thread is called “re-georgianise dublin”, however personally I am a fan of so called brutalism, so I might as well start a thread called “brutalise dublin”. Of course we still appreciate the panthoen and notre dame, but also Le Corb’s Chapel in Ronchamp, Mies new notional gallery in Berlin, its neighbour Scharoun’s philharmonie, Utzon’s opera house, FLW’s falling water and …….. on and on….

Utterly fucking pointless.

I know it’s a dull Sunday, but…

Why don’t we just De-eyesore the city?

Liberty hall, DOHC/Apollo House, obviously the Ballymun flats (thanfully going), other 60s/70s corporation buildings.

And unfortunatly the Loop Line bridge can’t go. Despite how much some people hate it, it’s vital.

Irish Life mall also needs a lick of paint.

Dundrum Town Centre has to go, but be developed in a street based small unit fashion, not another Shopping centre.

Stillorgan Shopping centre.

Phibsboro Shopping centre.

Basically all big developments that aren’t easy on the eye.

We can’t make all of the City Georgian or any other period, but we should rip up the ugly mistakes.

@Denton wrote:

Why don’t we just De-eyesore the city?

Liberty hall, DOHC/Apollo House, obviously the Ballymun flats (thanfully going), other 60s/70s corporation buildings.

And unfortunatly the Loop Line bridge can’t go. Despite how much some people hate it, it’s vital.

Irish Life mall also needs a lick of paint.

Dundrum Town Centre has to go, but be developed in a street based small unit fashion, not another Shopping centre.

Stillorgan Shopping centre.

Phibsboro Shopping centre.

Basically all big developments that aren’t easy on the eye.

We can’t make all of the City Georgian or any other period, but we should rip up the ugly mistakes.

Lmao I’d agree that de-eyesoring Dublin, or indeed most European cities, would give precedence back to the historic architecture, and indeed the decent modern architecture too.

The Loopline has to be replaced though, it’s an insult on the eyes. A nice, ultra-thin, stainless steal bridge would be a godsend, bringing the Customs House back into the vista from OCS and bringing the docklands back into the city centre.

Cannot be understated how detrimental Loopline is on central Dublin.

Oh and OCB House too…