The Spike
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With all the talk of the height of the spike, do you not feel we’re slipping into the mentality that bigger is better and that’s what counts.
I’d rather not know any of the statistics about the spike at all and just take it as I see it.Its just that I drive into town every day from swords and I can see the poolbeg towers a few times on the way (weather permitting). so I was wondering if I will be able to see the spire.
I am looking forward to seeing it up. I think it will look brilliant and will add to the city despite what most Dubliners are saying. But most people are up for a good moan these days given half a chance. They have answers and an enlightened opinion on everything!
Actually, I think bigger is better when it comes to building a monument that’s for the whole city.
The more visible it is from afar, the more different contexts you can see it in.
Like the Eiffel tower, that slips in and out of view all over the city, contsantly reminding you that you are in Paris.
The World Trade Centre was an even better example, creating a sense of place as it rose up, sometimes unexpectedly, in the distance from within the different boroughs.
And tall strutures help you find your way around.
OK, I admit it, I just want to be able to see it from my flat…I agree. Tall and notable structures stratigically placed add a sense of easily finding locations within a city. They also add variation to the skyline.
Dubin of old had this too in the form of the church spires and domes stretching into the sky. Somehow this concept has been lost today with our planners, making for a horizontal and rather drab city.who knows maybe people will say it is’nt tall enough in years to come!
I was impressed with canary warff in london. I was staying in southgate which is north of london about six miles or something and you could see the red light on top of the building very clearly at night. It gave a good sense of where the centre of london was in relation to were i was staying. maybe the spike will do the same?Could anyone post the Irish Times article from this morning re: Friday the 13th and the Spire? The full version without the damn login.
Thanks
on a similar note, will the Spire have a red flashing light on top, to ensure the odd low flying helicopter does not puncture itself on it?
Yes the top 6 or 8 feet is a aircraft beacon and according to Shane O’Toole beautifully detailed. I have emailed Ian Ritchie architects re a photograph of it, but they haven’t responded.
In relation to the Spire, I know its a bit late at this stage, but in the whole debate surrounding the structure at the beginning, not once was the major question of the complete lack of need for any structure or focal point in O’ Connell Street raised. The idea that the street has had an empty void at its centre for the past four decades, after the removal of Nelson’s Pillar, is ludicrous. The whole effect of the street relies in its continuity, its streamlined, ‘stretching into the distance’ effect.
Nelson’s Pillar was a ghastly stout Doric pillar, perched on top of an unadorned chunky granite block, the size of a semi-d, (this coming from a person renouned for favouring all things classical). But as always, the rose- tinted spectical wearing sentimentalists won over (albeit 40 years later), and insisted upon a new monument. We should have grasped the opportunity to redevelop the street in a manner that accentuates its impressive, unbroken length and continuity, & ditched any plans for a monument. Saying that, if any structure was to go into O’Connell Street, the Spire is by far the one I would chose, it being the most elegant, refined, and dignified modern structure I have ever seen, a wonderful manifestation of classicisim, modernisim and fundamental good taste. A triumph of modern architecture.The Nine O’ Clock News on Friday said the building begins this week and should be finished by next Friday (20th).
I will be away this weekend, so will probably miss the erection of the first couple of sections. I trust Paul and fjp will be there with their respective cameras?
The pillar may at first have been an unneccesary intrusion on the street, but once you establish a monument of that size on such a central site, it becomes part of the landscape, whether its aesthetics are questionable or not.
The pillar said, “this is the centre of Dublin”, and was treated as such by the people. It was before my time, but I’ve always seen the site as a gap just from seeing the old pictures and from my parents going on about it.
By comparison, I don’t think anyone could call Liberty Hall good architecture either on its own merits or whether it’s right for its location, but Dublin wouldn’t be Dublin without it.jeez paul, lay it all on me then!!! 🙂
Has anyone any idea of what time they’ll be kicking off at??
fjp
now fjp, the trick is to get the Spire all in one shot from a very close vantage point.
I suggest standing on increasing numbers of milk crates to taking pictures at different fjp elevations until you are at least at eye level with the top of the Spire and then stitching them together in photoshop when you get home.
Shots taken from Westmoreland or D’Olier Street will instantly be dismissed as the works of amateurs 😉Looks like there will be no start to the Spire tomorrow!
From today’s Irish Times….
Design difficulties delay Spire again
By Kitty HollandThe erection of the Spire in Dublin has been delayed again amid fears that it may end up looking like a barber’s pole.
Mr Michael O’Neill, project engineer, dismissed reports that assembly of the monument would begin on Friday.
“There won’t be any activity before the weekend,” he said. He hoped things would begin to happen next week. “But we’ve got to get the finish right first.”
Mr O’Neill said two weeks ago, amid problems with the application of a protective masking material, it was “hard to predict” when the Spire would be ready for shipping to Dublin.
The protective masking material, necessary while the design is being applied to the surface, has now been successfully applied.However, there is now a problem because of a lack of consistency in the design application.
When the tiny beads of metal are shot at the stainless steel surface to polish and embellish it, in an engineering process known as shot-peening, “the design is having a tendency to stripe”, said Mr O’Neill.
“It’s making the design look a bit like a barber’s pole,” he said. “It has to be a consistent finish and getting that right takes a bit of time.
“It is only time, though, and it has to be right. If we got it wrong, if it looks ugly, no one would forgive us.”
Asked what was causing the inconsistency, he said there were “a hundred-and-one permutations” of factors that could be causing it, including “the pressure of the application, the nozzles, the shroud around the nozzles”.
The Spire, which is under construction at Radley Engineering in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, is in six sections. The first 10-metre section will be the first to have the design shot-peened on to the surface.
Experts in shot-peening from the Metal Improvement Company in London have arrived in Waterford to help apply the design, said Mr O’Neill.
At present, engineers were practising the application on waste metal.
“Once we get it right and start applying it, it will be a matter of two or three days to complete the application.
“I would reckon we would have news by the end of the week, on when it’s ready to come up to Dublin.”
Gardaà in Dungarvan say they still have not been given notice of when the first two sections will leave Radley Engineering works. According to Mr O’Neill, the sections will be escorted through each county by that county’s gardaà on a tarpaulin-covered lorry.
They will be brought to the outskirts of Dublin and held there until given clearance by the Dublin gardaà for the final journey to O’Connell Street, said Mr O’Neill.
Another cock up…. Can anything be done properly and on time in this bloddy country?This whole spike debacle has become a farce, to name one farce on a whole list of them, Stadium Ireland, NDP, Luas etc…..
FYI:
The NAtional Development Plan Website is down since Nov. 11. for “maintenance” thus are all projects scrapped?!!!!
Yes, this country is the pits. No Spike, no stadium, and not to mention hospitals. I am REALLY angry.:mad: 😡 😡 😡
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