Tara Street Station, Redevelopment, Dublin

Have you seen the plans MG. If you have what are they like?

and more details at http://www.archeire.com/onsite/tara_street/

The images dont show the existing Ulster Bank buiding work going on behind. How will it be intergrated with this scheme?? Of course, any other country with any appreciation for urban design etc., would have got these two developments together, to create something quite beautiful to reflect the Custom House, two designs that work together functionally and aesthetically as a composition. Obviously its too late now, as the Ulster Bank (probally the worst infill design I’ve ever seen) is nearly complete. How will Tara street relate to this scheme in terms of scale etc.??? Will there be any public spaces (plaza) created from these two designs?

In two words “bloody hell”!! I like it

It reminds me of SOM’s Gas Company building in Los Angeles, but this is a pretty poor imitation. I would be interested in how deep the plan/section is and what the material/finish will be?

The pic look good alright,
but it will look differently
against the mess on either side,
especially the Tara st, poolbeg st
area tall buildings.

Then again if you were to show a pic
of Hawkins house against a sky that
blue people would probably say they
like it.

We can’t judge this building on a very basic computer image – more detailed drawings (plan, sections etc.) are neccessary. Vital information has even crudely been left out these images (surrounding high-rise buildings). It certainly has the potential to be a good scheme……at least, by Irish Architecture standards.

This looks quite stylish….John Portman- like…..no doubt it will meet opposition and will probably have to be reduced in height and coated in red brick instead!

To add, if this building gets the go ahead maybe they’ll replace the Loopline bridge (despite it being a fine Victorian example)with a more modern one being lighter in appearance as what was proposed before. Santiago Calatrava could get the job and Irish Rail can finally say hello to the 21st century.

Don’t know much about the height of the neighbouring buildings not being portrayed properly in the computer image but where the hell did all the trees come from?

[This message has been edited by kburns (edited 30 January 2001).]

Have to admit that i was impressed and surprised when i saw the above image but as mentioned earlier the image is very basic, makes it look like like the building is planned for a green field. Plenty of questions – what will face where, what materials will be used and we definitely need a picture showing all surrounding buildings, particularly interested to know what it will look like against the crappy towers currently under construction at georges quay.

I wonder will CIE’s impressive plans extend to providing a toilet for its customers ?

…and will they keep it clean?…mutton dressed as lamb, etc…lovely trees!

I doubt if they will keep it clean, look what has happened to the new Connelly Street station, its always filthy.

Dont blame CIE, blame the users.

Fair point Rory but I still think CIE should (if they have the resources) spend more money on cleaning.

So what do you all think of the picture MG posted?…looks a tad bulky for my liking, dont know about its chances of getting pp with all the emphasis from the corpo on tall and slender blah blah.

That view shows the building at its maximum width, as the site is narrow and long. I think that the subtleties of the curves are also lost in what is a rather bland rendering.

It does seem to be quite a large building though, but I imagine that the Georges Quay dev. will pave the way for planning permission.

They should build it and remodel the loopline bridge as well. It’s the 21st century and the public should have a better understanding of the architecture of today.

Failing to keep a train station clean, like the city’s streets, cannot be blamed on a lack of resources. It’s the failure to properly manage the resources available which is the problem, such as the lack of supervision of cleaning or personal accountability (how much cleaner this city would be if regular checks were made of street cleaners!). Moreover, always blaming the public for litter (which Dub. Corpo. does) directs attention away from this management failure, afterall, every European city creates litter except most are much better at removing it than we are!

Here we go again, the public are not at fault for the litter problem. We are not a dirty nation. It is the Corpo’s fault! Marx, cop on a bit. That attitude has excused our dirty ways for a long time. While u are correct in what u say about management and resources, but imagine if people in our cities began to realise that they don’t have a god- given right to dump where ever they like, the task of keeping the cities clean would be easier, less expensive. Our local authorities have many many better things to do than wasting huge monies and man hours, on picking up our litter. I’ll ask u one question Marx. Honestly, who is at fault for Dublin’s, Cork’s, Limerick’s litter problem……is it really the ‘authorities’ or the public?? Your first message seems like a bit of a cop- out that’s all, and it excuses the public from any responsibilty whatsoever. Does every European city really create the same volume of public litter that we do? I don’t think so.

[This message has been edited by bunch (edited 22 February 2001).]

A small minority throw their rubbish on the street, most people put it in a bin! Observe people in the city centre and you’ll see that very few litter the street, thus, why do we see so much dirt? Because the Corpo don’t clean up properly – the job is always half finished or the “it will do attitude”, which IS very Irish. I don’t believe we are dirtier than our European neighbours.

PS: ….THE STREETS WILL BE SPOTLESS UNDER SOCIALISM!

Marx, I honestly think that we are a lot dirtier than other Europeans. Its a wider attitude to waste where we are going wrong. People often believe that if one has an item to dispose of in a city street and no litter bin is convenient, that we are then entitled to leave it on the ground. we should bring it home, and stop pointing fingers. I also believe that the argument that its a tiny minority who create the huge litter problem is pretty outdated. Dublin is a dirty city..extremely dirty, it has a reputation amongst tourists as being filthy, the cause of that problem are those who do it. not those who fail to pick it up.Cop on.

You both are making valid points.
Why argue? We Irish are extremely filthy……..almost barbarian. It stems from our history of deprivation and poverty and lack of urban and civic awareness. The council and corpo depts could be a lot more efficient too in cleaning and there should be an enforcement of the litter laws. We are just too lackadazical.

cop on GregF, at least keep it real, we are NOT “extremely filthy…..almost barbarian” -okay so we are more careless than our european counterparts as far as littering is concerned, but the corporation do have a lot to answer for. There does not to be seem any regularity or overall plan to clean our city streets, everything is haphazzard. I lived in 3 American cities for 4 months at a time (okay i know its not europe!), and in all three (San Francisco, Boston, Chicago) all surburban streets were cleaned 3 times a week and city streets were cleaned, sterilised every morning – work men and cleaning machinery everywhere. I went to work at 4am in the morning, and saw the filth that built up on the streets every day before they were cleaned, sure irish people in general have to change, but the authorities need to take a systematic approach to cleaning our streets regularly, both urban and surburban

[This message has been edited by Peter FitzPatrick (edited 24 February 2001).]

I agree in part with you Pete….but I did say that the council and corpo depts could be far more efficient in cleaning. (They are still learning, as it’s all new to us.) As for the comments regarding us been a filthy lot almost barbarian….well I stand by that. See the ammount of illegal dumping being done. There was a great programme on Prime Time last year which hi-lighted this…dead dogs,auld beds, household rubbish,fridges were all dumped the side of a particular road. Note too the Liffey at low tide.
Visit any suburb too and see that for every respectable presentable household see also a dirty kip with wrecks of cars in the front garden, weeds up to the window, gates hanging off the pillars, grafitti, petty vandalism, snotty nose kids, wild dogs, stray cats. I know as I live’d in such a suburb. And when such people visit the city centre they bring their hygene ethos or well lack of it with them. Note, all the chewing gum too stuck to the pavements especially on the newly repaved Henry Street even with bins provided. (Realistically too, Ireland has one of the youngest populations in Europe, that can be a factor ….young rebellious and stupid) Great subject material for Roddy Doyle and Frank McCourt…but all true…and when you think that according to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clark we’d be all living on big wheels in space in 2001AD.

Cheers!

Aparrently it’s going ahead – and I gotta say it looks pretty horrific… Much too bulky and COMPLETELY out of scale so close to the river. In comparison The George’s quay Scheme is now being proven as a valid response to the site, creating a cluster of slender towers, breaking down the bulk and creating a valuable addition to the Dublin Skyline. Not least of the problems with the Tara St proposal is that it blocks all view of the George’s Quay Scheme from further upp the river, replacing it’s modulated (and beautifully proportioned) peaks with a slab of reflective glass… Ah well, maybe it’ll improve the Station itself a bit…

Related and may be of interest

A global railroad renaissance has produced a slew of spectacular new buildings that hark back to the golden age of train travel. http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1201/tra/index.html

Thank God it got the go ahead…hope the architects done a good job and it’s stylish and landmarkish for Dublin. I love the shiny surface!

I think I will like the building.

However I wonder how much thought is put into how the building will look with its surroundings. Not only the Georges Street scheme but also the forthcoming replacement for the shabby tall corpo builing on Tara st.
Is that replacement presenlty being designed in isolation to this one today.

It gets my thumbs up!

To answer BTH, I agree the Georges Quay towers are great, but I amn’t sure that they are all that visible from further up the river, the river curves and they are blocked by all the five and six storey buildings in between.

We have the new upto date visuals of the design at http://www.irish-architecture.com/onsite/tara_street/index.html

Hopefully they’ll make the new concorse passenger friendly (an alien concept to CIE) Tara St at present is a death-trap. The platforms are too narrow – completely unable to handle the amount of passengers using the station. The same goes for the ticket lobby. These guys should take a look at the transit system in Singapore to see what an efficient, comfortable station looks like.
Quite like the main tower however although I too would be concerned about its appearence against the surrounding buildings. Suprise suoprise the design pics dont seem to include these buildings, just lots of lovely blue sky.
How do you think Kennedy’s pub will fit in with the overall building? Maybe they should consider dismantling it and rebuilding it elsewhere (its a protected structure isnt it)

Now that I’ve seen the new visuals I have to say that it dosent look like a bad building -much more interesting than the previous renderings and models I’d seen. However i still don’t know about having such height so close to the river – the effect of this height of building here paired with Liberty Hall almost directly opposite will be the creation of a “gateway” effect through which the river will flow. Now this could be a good thing, but it could also be overpowering in the context, especially so close to the rightful centrepiece of the area – The Customs House. Granted, it’s already a much abused landmark, surrounded by buildings all seemingly screaming for attention (particularly IFSC house whose sickly green windows are looking incredibly dated), but to further add to the clutter of “Landmarks” in this area would be a shame.
But, I have to say, if building an office block above it is the only means by which we can get a better Tara St Station (which I have to suffer at least twice a day), I guess it’s gotta be done. Just a pity it dosent do more to complement whats around it rather than adopting a pretty funky, but slightly too showy appearance.

As for the views of George’s Quay, I was thinking of further down, closer to the Guinness Brewery, where the stepped pyramids look pretty cool as part of the skyline. Theres also a great view of them from in front of City Hall. I’m still pleasantly surprised by these buildings after the initial horror at seeing the scheme renderings. Maybe it’ll be the same for the new Tara St. Who knows!?

I have to say that I like the look of this but I find it very annoying that the other buildings and features surrounding it, such as the rest of the Georges Quay development, are still not shown. The geezer pyramids have to be shown in these views in order to illustrate how crowded or otherwise that area will be, although I assume the developers of the pyramids are reluctant to hand over drgs. Is this new building higher than the pyramids? It looks as though it may be in between the highest and lowest towers. But regardless of how it looks, it has to be a train station that is functional and safe and with enough capacity to handle the commuters as well as the commercial traffic.

i think the building dominates the skyline too much when viewedfrom the west.It should be built to a smaller scale and a lower height. Chances are it will overshadow the Custom House. I think Dublin should not be built as a high rise city and the maximum height for builds would be 15-18 storys in pacific areas of the city

I think they should definitely build the new Tara Street proposal…..it would act as an anchor at this point and a gateway with Liberty Hall across the Liffey as already stated. The Loopline bridge definitely needs to be remodelled as what was once proposed; a much lighter structure is needed….not because of the views of the Custom House but so as to minimise that obtrusive visual break in the city. (I think the emphasis on the Custom House is too much…. especially when one thinks that all we are looking at is a shell of a once important building as like the Four Courts) It’s a gas to see too, that people have changed their oppinions to in favour regarding the Georges Quay development…..I am not saying it is great but I remember it was once lambasted on these forums….I prefer this to the over scaled awkwardly fitting SOM proposal that was once mooted….The stack scheme seems to fit much better on the quays despite it being ‘a regular building’ in some other countries/cities abroad. Us Irish still have to learn how scale and height operates and works in an urban and city environment…..we are so naive.

I think they should definitely build the new Tara Street proposal…..it would act as an anchor at this point and a gateway with Liberty Hall across the Liffey as already stated. The Loopline bridge definitely needs to be remodelled as what was once proposed; a much lighter structure is needed….not because of the views of the Custom House but so as to minimise that obtrusive visual break in the city. (I think the emphasis on the Custom House is too much…. especially when one thinks that all we are looking at is a shell of a once important building as like the Four Courts) It’s a gas to see too, that people have changed their oppinions to in favour regarding the Georges Quay development…..I am not saying it is great but I remember it was once lambasted on these forums….I prefer this to the over scaled awkwardly fitting SOM proposal that was once mooted….The stack scheme seems to fit much better on the quays despite it being ‘a regular building’ in some other countries/cities abroad. Us Irish still have to learn how scale and height operates and works in an urban and city environment…..we are so naive.

Ah the poor Loopline bridge, clean it, paint it and it we’d learn to love it. Any bridge there would create a visual break. It is convenient that there is a break there anyway in the city grain and fine victorian cast iron bridge is as good at celebrating that break as something lighter and more obviously built in the context of the newer buildings to the east.