The Spike
- This topic has 979 replies, 111 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 1 month ago by
.
- Posts
The Spire has been completed for months, we can see the finished artical now and can judge it perfectly objectively.
And I still, and always will, deem the base to be ghastly. Never will I tip-toe to the ‘other side’.
Unfortunate for me, different for others of course.Official lighting up day – 5th of July. Join the Mayor of Dublin to Celebrate:
Millenium 2000.. er no hold on, Christmas 2002, shite winds… New Years eve 2002 .. sod it its not finished, er Paddys Day, Easter …, Special Olympics…Midsummers night – ah bollocks hows about the day after American Independence Day.
Welcome to Ireland – the land where we make it up as we go along
I quite agree with you Graham. The bottom really ruins the look of the whole thing. It would look much better without that design scrawled on it.
I am not talking about the surroundings I am talking about the design on the spire itself. I think it would look much better if it was left as the rest of it is.
The idea of the spike is quite good, even though I would have gone for a more interactive idea. But it really lets us down as a piece of engineering – you can see every seem all the way up, the lights don’t work, the bottom is a completely different colour due to tarnish but possibly due to a different chemical treatment for the graphic. They couldnt even manufacture the thing in anything like reasonable time.
No wonder manufacturing is dead in this country, if you were an outside observer would you want to hire our engineers – based on this project.
a french company was responsible from most of the delay & the lights have not been fitted yet.
I agree that the finish is quite poor in places, the joins should not be visible, section 2 is particularly bad ….
I wouldn’t blame the French right off – the thing is still delayed 6 months after it getting here from France – you can blame the French, the high winds, the rain (why not?!), the Irish Aviation Board, The Brits (it was their lighting), the traffic pollution, technology (a self cleaning stainless steel?), or just the Corpo.
Does the pattern on the base have planning permission?
This was not the pattern agreed until after Christmas, long after the High Court ruling, pp, the EIS and everything else.
This pattern is arguably a major deviation from the approved sculpture design, in my view it has significant impliations to the structure’s relationship with the GPO and the Street as a whole, ie, I think it makes a complete mockery of urban planning.
It would be very interesting to see if it has pp.
Hey – it’s nothing a bit of steel wool won’t fix up. Send Bord Pleanala down there to get scrubbing.
it really is looking quite grubby at this stage … (whenever the sun is not shining)
why did they bother shot peening the surface at all ? whatever about the design, the polished mirrored areas of the lower section look great, would be nice to see what the whole monument would look like polished to the same level …
ritchie should be asked to explain this “self cleaning” business, because its clearly not.
About the ‘official illumination’, is this just the tip being lit or the entire sculpture, as there are still no floodlights on any of the surrounding buildings, on any, including the rooftops.
And under 3 weeks to go…
Anyone know whats going on infront of the GPO?
Plaza work, by any freak of nature?
was thinking the same myself Graham, could’nt see any evidence of lighting to illuminate the base either …
I see the middle aviation light is now permanently on, it doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would, It will be interesting to see how bright or effective the top light will be, hope it doesn’t turn out to be a damp squib …
and yes, construction has started on the plaza in front of the GPO …
Reminds me of Michael Hopkins in response to criticism of his dour black-roofed (but rather wonderful, I am alone in thinking) building for MPs next to Big Ben in London.
He said all it needed was going over with wire wool to bring back the black to its intended bronze colour.
Trouble was, that getting teams of workmen to go over the vast acreage of roof with wire wool would cost millions. So the roof stays black.
I suspect the Spike may be cleaned for now, but will thereafter swiftly revert to darkness. Stainless steel does this, unless it has the magic Scotchbrite touch of our correspondent Alan D.
There is another great monument on O’Connell
Street that never gets any of the glory it deserves, namely the Parnell Monument. It’s a real humdinger I think and always had me twisting my neck in the car to get a better look as we drove past it when I was a kid.So don’t get hung up on details on the Spike,
check out the Parnell monument or have a look at the Wellington monument up in the park, it must be 150 years old and there’s not a chip off it.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
