Stephens Green
- This topic has 15 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 19 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
I can’t belive what the city council have just done on St Stephens Green. Passing by this morning only to see that they have replaced every one of the original gas Victorian lantern heads on the lamposts on the eastern side of the Green, which have been there for well over 100 years, with that same old modern reproduction tat that they have thrown up around Temple Bar and onto the Halfpenny Bridge. They are the usual cheap, cumbersome, black- sprayed stainless steel moulded frames, complete with, of all things, frosted glass panels! The lanterns were the only redeeming feature left on the Green, considering the Council desroyed its railings 6 months ago by attaching nasty spikey teeth between its points, where will they stop!?!?!
I thought they were restoring the originals! Ah the nievity of it all. They have yet to attack the other sides (although the heads are already gone) so stop them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -
-
-
-
-
They are the originals, ‘originals’ referring to approx 1860/70, I’m talking about the smaller ones, around the pavement that encircles the Green, rather than the 70’s ones replacing the tall, silver posts once positioned across the road on the other pavement surrounding the Green.
Also, on top of those granite bollards, the metal tips have been replaced with new metal tips, but this time with hooks/hoops attached. Does this mean the OPW are going to chain off the pavement from the road? How are you supposed to get from your car onto the pavement? -
-
-
-
True. All of those cars parked around detract from the Green. Originally, in the 18th century, there was a wide boulevard/avenue known as the Beaux Walk encircling the Green where the pavement and parking spaces now are, lined with a double row of trees. Pity it couldn’t be restored, considering the area is a four laned motorway at rush hour and a barren wasteland during the day.
-
-
-
-
No way! The square is a Victorian square….if anything it should be restored to its 1900 state. Modern lamps (and street furniture) would look completely out of place. The reason Merrion, Fitzwilliam and Mountjoy Squares look as effective as they do is because they are more or less totally intact. They have already made enough architectural mistakes on Stephen’s Green (like Dept of Justice and its many contemporaries).
Mind you I am note sure what the Luas side will look like…I hope it is done sensitively to the other sides. No big ugly steel girders to hold cables. -
Well technically its a lot older than Victorian although that is when Lord Ardilaun formalised the park and opened it to the city, however given the fact that 2 sides (south and west) of it are now surrounded with modern buildings I dont believe it works as a square (eg Merrion and Fitzwilliam).
There is however an issue here where we keep looking back to the past for our street furniture/buildings and creating a pastiche of what was there before – if this was always the case we’d still have open gas braziers (not the smithfield ones mind you).
-
It’s not a matter of looking back through rose tinted glasses, or having a closed mind in favour of all things classical, but rather retaining what already exists that works well. The Victorians & Georgians built in the manner they did because it is effective & asthetically pleasing. If ‘classical’ street furniture has been removed, ie all over Dublin in the 60s & 70s, it is only right that it should replicated in areas where it is appropriate. However, plonking down some shoddy reproduction rubbish in predominantly modern areas is equally damaging & fundamentally stupid.
Saying that, there’s a lot to be said for terrible ‘contemporary’ street furniture, such as those lights craning over the Boardwalk, looking at them today, they’re nothing more than cheap, crude, unfinished, moulded steel pylons that are being passed off as modern or ‘cool’ design.
The OPW have just stripped away one of the last original features of St Stephen’s Green, an organisation that supposedly prides itself upon conservation and respect for the past in the face of progress. The least they can do is retain the lamposts on the west side of the Green that have not been touched, pending LUAS works.
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
