Redrawing Dublin
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Notice of a potentially interesting event this evening in ‘The Complex’, Smithfield, I haven’t got a time, maybe somebody knows?
Let’s hope there’s not a clash now with the inaugural meeting of the Smithfield Bloodbath Survivors Group, who are apparently resisting all attempts at relocation to The Bleeding Horse._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The URBAN PARTY has invited diverse and acclaimed ‘Dublin Voices’ to speak for just 3 minutes each on their vision for our city, giving you fast moving and rotating urban perspectives on the future of Dublin.
At a challenging time for our City and Country, the Urban Party provides a political soapbox to lobby our new government on the way forward for Dublin.
THE VOICES
Ivana Bacik – Senator
Dylan Haskins – Social Entrepreneur
Alan Mee – Urban Agenda
Vanessa Fielding – The Complex
Theatre Machine
Kieran Rose – Planner
Maxim Laroussi – Architecture Republic
Gerry Godley – Musician
Elaine Byrne – Journalist
Jay Bourke – Entrepreneur
Michael McDermot – Le Cool Dublin
Dick Gleeson – City Planner
Leanne Caulfied – Second Level Student’s Union
Garrett Pitcher – Indigo & Cloth
Paul Keogh – RIAI
Aaron Copeland – Upstart
Mick Wilson – Gradcam
Sandra O Connell – Editor
Dermot Lacey – Councillor
Ali Grehan – City Architect
Constantin Gurdgiev – EconomistWe hope you can join us
The Party starts at 6.30pm
A decent turn out for Urban Party tonight, who’d have thought free beer would pull people in off the streets on a damp Wednesday night?
The ridiculously early start made me to miss the first half dozen speakers, including stalwarts of these occasions such as Alan Mee and Ivana Bacik [the latter being saved from the potential embarrassment of not getting a seat by the clever device of a standing only format]. I apparently also missed Kieran Rose, but it didn’t matter on this occasion as it seems that he had agreed in advance to swap scripts with RIAI’s Paul Keogh, who appeared further down the bill.
A character from ‘Le Cool Dublin’ which I imagine is something I’m too old to be interested in, delivered a long wish list for the city, which included some eminently sensible ideas like allowing bikes on the Luas and having more Tesco stores. Young radicalism but with convenience, I like that.
Dick Gleeson felt the need to declare at the outset that he loved his job as chief city planner, as if anyone wouldn’t love to have a decent job in the current climate, but he seemed slightly uncomfortable and unsure in his delivery of the view from high officialdom. Dick took the opportunity of his three minute Urban Party presentation to announce some new Dublin Regional Ten Point Plan Thing [possibly including headings such as ‘Food’ and ‘Water’] and you began to sense what it must be like to stand in a Arab square right now and listen to an swarthy embattled potentate promise cash payouts if people would just disperse quietly and go back into negative equity and leave him alone to govern in peace.
Garrett Pitcher [a new name to me] observed that the city is shrinking [apparently to an area around Grafton Street] which will be news to people living in new housing estates out the backside of Swords, but his other observation; that ‘empty premises are killing the city’ did strike a cord with the audience.
Elaine Byrne came on stage in a pink woolly hat and for a moment I prepped to hear from the basket weaving end of the cultural spectrum, but in fairness, Byrne’s theme was the acutely observed fact that Dublin lacks the definitive centre that all decent cities [‘and even tribal villages in Ghana’] have and it’s time to take an axe to the trees in Foster Place and forge a proper city centre out of College Green. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Paul Keogh strolled on next and went on about the false gods of height and density [ – he of the plan to build the tallest residential tower in Dublin – ] but otherwise read from the Kieran Rose book of inter-city competition for bright young things and advancement through diversity, innovation and vibrancy etc. etc. all harmless notions in their own right until someone attaches them to some gawd-awful office park cluster on steroids where a bit urban repair was called for. Keogh did conclude with the declaration that ‘Dublin is more than Guinness and Craic’, which is worth saying.
Ken McHugh stepped up next, welcomed everyone to his patch, had a go at the City Council, listed half a dozen broken promises and presumably then went outside to piss on all the lamp posts.
Where others had struggled with the time constraints, Sandra O’Connell brought a bit of Teutonic efficiency to proceedings with a word count timed to finish a fraction ahead of the hooter. Sandra had plumped for a poetic theme and her presentation was meticulously cross referenced and brightly embellished with poetic quotations. If there is a compelling case for a directly elected city poet, this was it.
Moving swiftly on, the next speaker was Aaron Copeland of ‘Upstart’. These people are artistic provocateurs with other designs on our lamp posts. I fear a showdown with Ken may be in the offing.
So far, so good, and we began to sense that we might get out of there without a repeat of the recent Smithfield bloodbath, but at that point Cllr. Dermot Lacy strode on stage. Lacy is a man who was born in full election mode and nothing on this earth is going to come between him and the position of directly elected mayor, ‘read the odds on Paddy Power’ he nodded knowingly [there goes another seat Ivana Bacik isn’t going to get]. Wielding a verbal slash hook, Lacy hit the ground running with swipes aimed at Dick Gleeson, the city manager, the Dept. of the Environment and RTE in rapid succession. Luckily the hooter went before the crowd – now booze fuelled and whipped into a frenzy – could break out the burning torches and charge out into the streets to wreak righteous vengeance.
But the format is the format, so this demagogic outburst was all over in three minutes and then we had the task of adjusting to the slight figure of Ali [the city architect]. Ali’s message was design, design and more design and to keep on-message Ali was sporting a neat, contour hugging, designer outfit with a shiny black belt which I personally found too distracting to take any further notes. I heard something about a ‘big document that’s gone to the printers’ and there was talk of 2014 and going it alone on Design Capital status, which is probably something to do with the anniversary of the battle of Clontarf and sticking one in the eye of Scandinavia.
The evening finished up with Constantin Gurdgiev, fully endorsing Dermot Lacy’s tirade and reminding people that great cities tended to be the product of despotic regimes, which is another reason to believe that we may have been short changed . . . . . as well as being robbed blind and landed in debt for the rest of our lives.
Good stuff, by and large, we need to do this more often.
thanks for the update…
Yes, it was a very stimulating evening and loads of really good ideas came out. I personally liked Kieran Rose’s suggestion of a new city library as a centre of learning in the city; I liked that the (lack of a ) City Museum surfaced a couple of times; loved the City Poet idea; and thought Elaine Byrne made a great case for College Green.
One of the shocks of the night is that The Complex is to be turfed out for a Tesco Metro which Vanessa Felding rightly pointed out will close down Fresh and will actually remove life from the square. She has the perfect audience to make her case to including the Senior Planner for the area (who also wrote the book), the senior planner in charge of economic development (who waxed lyrical about culture in the city), the City Planner (who disappointed with an abstract and uninspiring 3 mins) and the City Architect (who should be wondering why this great space juts isn’t a hive of life!). Hopefully, saner heads prevail.
Last but not least, Paul Kearns and Motti Ruimy should be congratulated for the boom and the energy behind the event and the online survey. Its great to see such thinkin’s. What a shame they didn’t say anything about the book though!
Yes, an enjoyable evening with surprisingly good free ale. It has become fashionable again. Fully agreed re the book – a great shame we didn’t get any expansion on it, even how it has been received to date. It was what everyone was expecting.
I didn’t hear Ivana because I was queuing at the bar behind a concrete pier.
I didn’t hear Dylan because I was queuing at the bar, a little further behind a concrete pier.
Alan Mee could have been given the evening, but alas only had three minutes. One got the impression he was all the audience wanted to hear. A great performance as ever.
Aside from consolidating the evening’s theme of Dublin 8 – The New Soho?, Garret Pitcher of ‘Indigo and Cloth’ on South William Street made some pertinent points, if his support for Metro North somewhat inflated by his declared 30+ visits a year to the airport. His argument of bringing people into the city could arguably be turned directly on its head, and smacked of an international inferiority complex from all his travels. Personally, of any city I have visited, Dublin’s connection to the heart of the capital from the airport has been the quickest and most direct. But jaysus, let’s not dredge that argument over to this thread.
Kieran Rose made some good points on his quite specific issue of the Central Library – the greatest revelation, if not an unsurprising one, being that the Parnell Square Ambassador proposal seems dead in the water. A magnificent site, but probably too constrained for expansion as I believe has been highlighted by the scoping plans drafted.
Elaine Byrne was a breath of fresh air on her plea for College Green and Foster Place, if admitting that her view of her hero Henry Grattan, from what is officially the best office in Ireland behind the glowering West Front of Trinity College overlooking College Green, is obscured by a scrawny mixumgatherum of London planes. But an impassioned and much-needed plea nonetheless, with her comparison drawn with Ghana inducing many a guffaw down the back. At the risk of exposing a terrible beauty that is Dublin’s public realm by immediately cutting down the trees, I think a photomontage or three should be compiled to soften us up to the potential impact, and give indication of what intermediary measures could be taken to smarten the place up prior to an all-singing civic improvement scheme. Based on this, all trees in the centre could and should be chopped within a matter of months. Foster Place needs more time for a fulsome strategy to be formulated. Byrne even knowing of its existence, never mind its name, got her a thumbs up from me. Her pink attire certainly generated a raised eyebrow or two in contrast to her thoroughly Establishment persona on Vincent Browne every fortnight.
Jay Bourke never showed up, quelle surprise.
Michael McDermott of Le Cool was one of the best speakers of the night. Informed, grounded, measured and very entertaining. More of him please.
I thought Paul Keogh was thought-provoking (if agreed about the Hueston contradiction). He countered the prevailing winds of the Celtic Tiger articulately. One of the better speakers.
Sandra O’Connell on poetry was majestic.
I thought the absence of any conservation or architectural heritage voice was glaringly absent from the event – arguably depriving the entire debate of any meaningful context – but that’s no surprise given who appointed the speakers. Just not beautiful enough.
Dermot Lacey got the best reception of the night, unsurprisingly, with his tirade against the structures of Dublin City Council, Dublin local government and the national broadcaster. He certainly has a point, but then, some of these tensions will always exist regardless of what reforms are introduced. It’s part of the entertainment of life. His vocal opposition to the proposed incinerator was particularly and understandably well received, as with Constantin later in the evening.
Aaron Copeland of Upstart was brilliant.
The crowd was quite raucous down the back, so some speakers got drowned out by frankly more entertaining proceedings around me, so convieniently I cannot comment on all. Ali Grehan made a valiant plea for World Design Capital 2014 which for many was encouraging, but if you’d heard it before, or heard Dermot Lacey before, it didn’t quite catch the mood.
A final word of note must go to the design of the event itself. The standing format was spritely, the projections onto various walls of Redrawing Dublin animating and stimulating, and the lighting elegantly composed and controlled. Those wonderful clear bulbs with glowing coil filaments generate such atmosphere – a real delight. Alas they rarely venture out beyond venue applications in this country.
I think everyone left with the lingering question: Tesco or Fresh, Tesco or Fresh… Though one suspects at least one speaker had their mind clearly made up.
I know it was suggested before – last year – that the state takes back the Bank of Ireland on College Green, and it was mentioned last night. But it could be a magnificent City Library.
@Paul Clerkin wrote:
I know it was suggested before – last year – that the state takes back the Bank of Ireland on College Green, and it was mentioned last night. But it could be a magnificent City Library.
What is stopping them? sounds like a great idea…
They also should give the central bank over the unemployed architects so they can plan the future : )@GrahamH wrote:
Ali Grehan made a valiant plea for World Design Capital 2014 . . . .
I thought I had misheard this on the night, but apparently not. The Irish Times gave it a three-quarter page spread yesterday.
The people behind this are not to be messed with, so you can keep any negativity to yourselves.
Frank McDonald is mightily impressed with it and that should be good enough for ye.
This is going to be a cutthroat competition between 55 cities and judging from the standard of some of the promo images, offering prayers to the Virgin Mary might just be our best bet.
These stencilled lassies appear to be trying to prize open a doorway to let a drooping phallus in.
If this is going to turn smutty, I might have to withdraw my endorsement.
Anyway, the bid is broken down into four themes:
Connecting Cities, which is to do with how technology can be used to network isolated communities; a sort of digital equivalent to sending someone round to knock of doors.
Making Cities Lighter which is mostly about sustainability and what not, but includes the radical idea of lighting a rocket under Liberty Hall and blasting it into space.
Making Cities Flow builds on recent Japanese experience.
Making [the other] Cities Smile is the final category.
Like I said, this is a Yes We Can moment, if we truly believe, I can see us comfortably seeing off the likes of Cleveland and Czestochowa.
Is the book online?
@gunter wrote:
That is quirky as hell, can we leave the occupants in when it goes up; they seem to have a quite spaced out sense of reality?
Btw, a very good time to plan the future layout of Dublin there is probably a 3-5 year window until funding re-emerges to get ground broken on new schemes unless Captain Jack misses Space Shuttle Liberty and the 3 – 5 year window continues to be a 3 – 5 year period getting no closer to fruition for a protracted period. A strong plan with quality of life and high design standards at its core is the very least that the City requires to compete. I note the OECD became the latest think tank to introduce a quality of life index…. Maybe that schemes like Liam O’Carroll plan to wreck the North docklands with poor quality ‘Back Offices’ was in the longer term a blessing in disguise…
Just when David Norris thought there was nobody left in the arty left who hadn’t already stabbed him in the back, we have this from the IAF:
‘Are you bored by the costumed buffoonery of the annual suburban “Bloomsday” celebrations? ‘
. . . the cold treachery of it.
Continuity-James-Joyce in association with Over-Rated Liberties will mount their own Bloomsday celebrations on June 16, beginning with cappuccinos in Swallow and Burn, followed by a professional psycho-analyses of IAF bloggers [not before time]. The party will then venture out in inconspicuous little middle class groups for an escorted urban trek through the grimy world of the inner city. The route follows the ‘Arc of Degradation’ [possible including Thomas Street] before veering off to the north to pass the Simon Hostel on Usher’s Island [pause for photographs] and then swing back around via the gauntlet of the ‘North-West Bank’ to ‘Quartier Bloom’ and safety.
The event is open to anyone, but as it will be skimming along the surface, the shallow will probably get more out of it.
P.S. Buffoons are asked not to come in costume
@gunter wrote:
Bid for World Design Capital 2014
. . . . this is a Yes We Can moment, if we truly believe . . .
From the Metro this morning:
‘Dublin makes the shortlist of three cities in World Design Capital 2014 contest’
. . . . just as well we gave this the full, wholehearted, Archiseek backing
. . . phew
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