RTE programme on the future of Dublin
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A brief trailer tonight for this programme, it is on Thursday night at 19.00.
Not clear if is is a one off or the start of a series.
From P45.net ‘Couch Spud’ Newsletter: “The Changing Face of Dublin” (RTE 1, 7 pm) Fresh from his environmental series “The State We’re In”, Duncan Stewart presents ths four-part history of Dublin, from the Vikings to today’s planners.
Oh dear, another architecture programme on RTE that does not impress.
Initial reaction to the first show
– picture and sound poorly integrated.
– absence of any graphics showing growth, development of the city. Maps please.
– from Norman Cathederal to Trinity College being built covered in one sentence.
– Georgians rule O.K.
– many definitive statements made which are simply wrong, including the old no facilities planned for the Western New Towns, e.g. Tallaght. (It may have taken a very long time to build them, but they were planned.)
– fails to address the decline of the port industrial complex, the migration of industry & warehousing to the Long Mile Road and other places.
– a man, with a pronounced non-Dublin accent stating that the Irish had little “urban” tradition, as if!
– the usual myth that the retention of trams, or the Harcourt Street line were real options at the time those decisions were taken.
Even more creepy was the credits at the end stating what organisations, let us say vested interests, had helped fund this programme series.
The DTO and CIE might be relatively benign sponsors, but they are vested interests never the less.
You can get the gist of last nights show at http://www.rte.ie/tv/dublin/index.html
yet another programme which doesnt mention our new architectural language, or address why we are so eager to advance right now,
dublin seems to be racing forward and advancing at a huge rate…but what is the overall agenda design wise ? …. have future studies been carried out, according to the last programme the view is to intensify the river area, i would like to know who has the responsibilty for such strategy implimentaion, dublin corpo ? or is it being led by an architectural team in conjunction with same ?Actually, what is interesting about this series is not what it says but how it is clear that the real issues are fluffed.
For example the main element coming across clearly is that a coherent citywide masterplan is essential to the sucessful re-shaping of the city. This is completely absent.
For example – at a Bord Pleanala Oral Hearing in relation to one of the ducklands high rise schemes the City Architect admitted that Dublin Corporation did not have a masterplan for the city and that the corporations policy in this regard was to facilitate developers.
In the same hearing one of the chief planning officers conceded that the corporation responds to applications for planning permission rather than providing any kind of framework in whic they can be carried out.
This paucity of vision is what emphasizes the quality and desirability of the Georgian City as against the thoughtless unplanned mess which is currently taking hold of Dublin. On the one hand you have a visionary, controlled and well executed masterplan, on the other a ‘first come first served’ thoughtless process best characterised by the absence of ANY kind of plan – and generally leading to a proliferation of developer led, overpriced, ugly and poorly finished ‘dogboxes’ being the dominant form of architecturla expression in this city.
Jim Barret (Dublin City Architect) did produce a coherent city-wide master-plan !!
You must have blinked as he drew a thick line with a marker on a map of Dublin in parallel with the Liffey and stated the main axis for development of the city proper is now East West.
Maybe Duncan will ask him to produce his marker again and elaborate further on his plan.
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