Shopfront race to the bottom

26/8/2010

A recent flurry of improving works involving a number of properties around the city centre in recent weeks and months has served as a potent example of what can be achieved with a lick of paint – even if in some cases it has worked to questionable effect. The summer months really do seem to bring out the industrious spirit in people.

One of the largest scaffolds erected in Dublin on an existing building in recent years dominated the centre of Dame Street for much of the summer.

The building at the junction of Dame Street and South Great George’s Street got a much needed sprucing up after decades of neglect, as with countless historic properties in the city centre.

The final stretch of a Wide Streets Commission terrace dating to the 1780s, adorned with Victorian stucco adornments, the Mercantile Hotel presented a grim aspect to Dame Street with a grubby white façade accented in black – typical of the 1970s.

The transformation has been nothing short of a breath of fresh air.

It is like a switch has just been flicked.

As can be seen, in addition to the main facade, the previously unpainted gable end of the last house – which has remained exposed since the 1930s when the terminating house was demolished to improve the operation of the tram line – has been given decorative treatment for the very first time. While it has lifted matters considerably, it has to be asked if this measure merely consolidates the exposed gable end’s position here for all eternity. Likewise, the once gritty, raw and urban rendered gable hinted at a troubled history – a curious wound on the streetscape. Now it just looks like a mediocre suburban solution to the back arse of a garage. Still, that marvellously handsome chimney stack elevates it beyond the ordinary. And as the precedent for one of Zoe’s Mountjoy Square houses, it can’t be all bad!

A subtle and elegant use of colour.

The next person that says double-glazed panes don’t alter the appearance of a building can go stick their head under a closing sash.

The beautifully painted new shopfronts. An interesting choice of colour. Nothing inventive going on here (somebody show these guys a Cushman photo or two) but satisfactory nonetheless.

This of course is one of the most charming shopfronts in Dublin – precisely because it’s not off the shelf. The glittering, hand crafted coves have always been a delight.

What a difference simple tables and chairs and a few potted trees make, both to an architectural ensemble such as this apse as well as to a wider street.

We shall be keeping a close eye on these lads. How long shall we give before the novelty wears off, things get battered, banners and canvas railings start appearing, the postering goes up… We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

The below picture may need to be refreshed.

Quite a transformation.

But again the job played it safe with uniform paint colours on two very different buildings (and rare in style in the Dublin context at that), while also failing to tackle structural issues such as the reinstatement of a tripartite sash window on the middle building (where the window is used as an electronic billboard at night) and cabling continues to marr the shopfronts.

I really want to support the new Centra store and adjacent unit (out of shot) and the design concept behind it, and most of it is indeed successful, but there are issues of odd materials, dodgy proportions and cumbersome lighting units that sadly let the ensemble down for me. Good to see they’re complying with their postering planning conditions and lofty aspirations to upmarket presentation in their application :rolleyes:

Up the road on Lord Edward Street, the oldest building on the thoroughfare was recently refurbished for use by the social services next door. Aside from multiple Victorian doors, architraving and skirting ending up in numerous skips out on the road, things were going swimmingly with a lovely new coat of soft green paint applied to the doors and window of the charming original limestone shopfront.

Until the lady in charge told the painter she didn’t like it, got him to repaint the entire thing in er…

“I-a, I-a preferred da aaader color toooo – this is very biiiiight!!” he told me. Listen to your painter missus…

The Legion of Mary comes to Lord Edward Street.

Pity that clunky fascia didn’t come down; looks like there’s a nice slab of limestone underneath it. Lovely new lettering applied nonetheless.

Nice cleaning of a smart Edwardian over on Exchequer Street.

No white paint – yay!

Sultry and sophisticated. Perfect.

Not something that can be said of this new job over on Nassau Street.

Okay, so this really surmises the jist of what this whole post is about. Yes, it’s all very well and good to get on the phone to Peter the Painter and get the windows ‘done’, get the walls ‘done’ and the place ‘cleaned up a bit’. But these buildings are not 79 Glenwood Drive in Knocklyon – they are substantial historic properties on the principal streets of the capital that demand, never mind require, a coordinated design strategy before a paintbrush is even applied. And we must face up to the reality that, far from things having become more sophisticated during the boom years across the board, we have lost huge craft in even the deceptively simple task of painting a building or shopfront. Many firms don’t have clue how to identify a building, never mind its constituent parts, or the colours that may be appropriate for each, or the building as a whole based on its period.

Here we have a totally wasted expense on three buildings that looked better before work ever got underway. The central ebullient building, the former iconic Jammet’s restaurant, has effectively been erased of its stucco dressings, while adjacent brick buildings have had yet another thick layer of paint applied over their original facings.

Above and below are the same view with half a century in between.

Mercy, the art of the shopfront has been lost…

But the point is, this is an example of funds being misdirected because there are no mechanisims in place like in other cities at municipal level to offer assistance or direction in these matters. Had the substantial money invested in scaffolding, labour and paint been diverted and topped up by a free rotating scaffold by DCC, a small facade improvement grant provided by a lottery fund, and expert advice provided in house by a small DCC architectural team, these properties could have been restored to their full potential. The central bulding could have had an appropriately vigorous paint scheme employed, while the two adjacent buildings could have been stripped of paint and render where possible, the original brick exposed, and appropriate fenestration reinserted.

The brick of the right-hand building survives with apparently fine tuck pointing.

As for this once fine two-bay house. What a complete mess. These buildings, even with all the will in the world by owners, will never achieve their full potential without the input of the planning authority, and in particular the initiative of the planning authority to identify buildings such as this and take action to address them.

A dedicated design team is badly needed specifically to tackle the presentation of facades of Dublin’s principal and secondary streets. Let’s even get the main ones right to begin with.

Including St. Stephen’s Green.

Sterling work Graham, really excellent. By any chance have you seen the smiles dental clinic on O’Connell St? Some very dodgy signage has been used.

But you see the place above all the surrounding shite….which is important.

– “Where abouts on O’Connell Street are you?”
– “Beside Ann Summers?”
– “Huh?”
– “The really, loike, old building beside Ann Summers with the bright green pillars”

We are getting used to the idea that so much of what was gained over the past few years is being slowly eroded. This sad state of affairs can increasingly be seen in the city centre ( and many other town centres I imagine).

Walking through Dublin last week I couldnt help but notice the degree to which shopfronts have declines. BTs dazzling display aside, a great many shops are falling back into all the bad habits that are well illustrated in this thread.

I have heard a rumour that the City Council are now taking a blind eye approach to all new retail in the city centre. Put anything into a unit…as long as they pay rates. There appears to be no enforcement, no requirement to apply for permission to change shopfront, no application of the Shopfront Guidelines, little or no attempt to curb garish frontages. I know its Christmas etc but every shop window now seems plastered with poasters and stickers and temporary banners.

As ever, ethnic stores are the biggest offender. There seems to bean acceptance that all these operators are outside of the planning system. Some of the Polish skjeps in particular are dreadful.

Fair enough its a recession. Many of those smart boutiques and lifestyle shops are bound to close down as less money is about. And for whatever odd reasons the demand for tackarama euro shops increases.

I must get my camera out for some of the worst culprits.

Perhaps I am just a snob 🙂

Aha – Stephen’s eyes have been assaulted by the new Polish supermarket opposite St. Mary’s Church! Did ya ever see the like in all your days? Any other European city and this would be a quaint historic church surrounded by a civic square, little cafés and provisions shops and a daily on-street flower market. Here, we get a redundant roadway – newly paved specifically to make it more redundant – an industrially-railed off church curtilage crowded with commercial tat, a Polish supermarket straddling at least two historic properties forming the setting with newly mauled upper facades, and a fascia board ya can see from outer space!

Dublin city centre is coming down with unauthorised retail development at present – journalists really should be picking up on this. The entire city is transforming itself into Frank McDonald’s trashy honky tonk O’Connell Street of twenty years ago. Westmoreland Street as we all know is a complete write-off. Dame Street is without question within 18 months of being the same; indeed it is almost there, riddled with unauthorised uses, shopfronts and signage. Lower Grafton Street – give it a year at most based on current trends. Dawson Street is a complete kip and has been for years – how nobody else sees this is beyond me. Grafton Street gets worse by the second. Even South William Street has been losing the modest gains of recent years.

Everywhere you turn, a new Book Value has cropped up with its lurid turquoise plywood shopfront. What trades as a ‘pop-up’ bookstore is in fact a thriving chain specialising in unauthorised development – South Great George’s Street, Westmoreland Street, Bachelor’s Walk, lower Grafton Street, Merrion Row and elsewhere. Projecting signage is spreading like wildfire through the city. Postering and banners galore. Unauthorised fascias, facade-mounted signage, flagpoles, speakers – you name it. O’Connell Street has got so bad it is virtually impossible to keep track of what’s going on over there – every second store is breaking the law. Carroll’s Irish Gifts and Griffins newsagents have the entire centre wrapped up through unauthorised development – a mass action should be taken by the Department of Environment at this point against these persistent offenders.

It is well known that DCC Enforcement is grossly under-resourced thanks to the embargo on public sector recruitment and the loss of critical staff in the past year – including the only conservation enforcement officer. Similarly, the push for rates must surely be mitigating against any desire to push for standards across the city centre.

This just has to change. Dublin has actually been very lucky thus far – there has been relatively few closures in the past few years, in spite of the downturn in spending, and footfall is still holding up. Dublin never seems to suffer the fate of UK urban centres where clusters of vacant units tend to emerge as an immediate sign of a downturn. However, the new year will surely bring a whole new host of realities, and if decent planning codes and standards of presentation are not adhered to – in what is already a distinctly shoddy public realm in the city core – Dublin will only shoot itself in the foot. Indeed, even as we speak, the new Costa on College Green have just waltzed in, set up shop in one of the most prominent and architecturally significant buildings in the city in the former Daly’s club house, without so much as a peep from the planning authority, erected signage, flagpoles and lighting all over the façade, and are now applying for retention permission, plus permission to chop out the granite aprons of the arched shopfront! It simply beggars belief. The fact they think they can get away with this speaks volumes about the authority, the interest, the policy and the vision of the planning body running Dublin city – and for that matter, the mediocre and parochial standards of most of the merchants operating here.

It’s not all doom and gloom – the Henry Street axis is now without question the best looking street in Dublin, with Mary Street of a truly international – if somewhat soulless – standard. Grand, tall, gracious, immaculately designed and presented shopfronts, good displays, beautifully presented and illuminated historic facades – it makes Grafton Street and most of the city centre look like a landfill site. Needliess to say, it takes international retailers and their own handbook standards to improve the otherwise shoddy urban environment and standards of presentation in Dublin. Likewise, Exchequer Street is now the new Grafton Street – no question about it. The crown has been taken.

Planning policy leaders, planning enforcement, merchants and business associations seriously need to pull together to get this city into shape.

Maybe there’s a design challenge to be met here.

Commercial premises hunger for impact signage, but you’ll never get planning permission [except by mistake] for anything except low-impact signage.

Maybe we need to look at ways of designing signage that has more impact, but is less destructive of the streetscape than the current Logo driven signage.

Lettering itself is surprisingly undestructive of streetscape, even though these examples on 1950s Bachelors Walk probably amount to 100% more actual square footage of signboard than you’d see on the average Centra . . . . . . .

OK, maybe not Centra