tourists’ opinions of ireland

I think the point is more that people have seen these things on city breaks (metro, cafe culture, shops that open after 6 every night) and wonder why Ireland doesn’t have these things. The ‘tourists’ angle is one that is used to replace Irish annoyance with these issues with what would the visitor to our shore make of this shambles

because we were on our knees for so long when we became a Republic and did’nt have any money

@shanekeane wrote:

On numerous occasions while reading posts on this website, I have read comments about architecture in Ireland with the following gist: “This is a terrible idea, what will tourists think when they see it?”

In fact, I find that many of the debates on this forum are dominated by people who seem to have an inferiority complex about Dublin and other Irish cities – why don’t we have more coffee shops? – why don’t we have a big plaza surrounded by old buildings? – why don’t we a market like the one they have in Barcelona? – why don’t we have more international chain shops? – etc. etc.

Cities compete with one another and always have, everybody knows this, it’s part of the urban dynamic, it’s why Amien has a bigger cathedral than Reims, ask Kieran Rose, he’ll give you the references for six economic studies that prove that cities compete with one another.

One of the primary ways in which cities compete, is in the market for tourist visits.

Leaving the rest of the country and the ‘aul sod’ out of it for the moment, Dublin does OK in this competition, largely because we’ve cornered the market for drunken weekends, sorry ‘craic’. What we’re not good at is recognising and protecting our built heritage, our public realm, our civic identity, our urban character, etc. etc.

If we paid a bit more attention to what tourist think (the few who aren’t wearing leprechaun hats or L-plates and who aren’t swaying gently from side to side, or puking their guts into the Liffey) we might spot that many of them are actually a little bit shocked and bewildered by what they see and we might cop-on that we have a lot of work to do, and get on about doing it, instead of always codding ouselves that we’re great and ‘sure you’ll never go to Geneva for the craic’.

What is the answer to the questions you’ve posed?

Why are our coffee shops so miserable (with some exceptions) and why do they mostly close at 5.30?

‘Why do we not have a big plaza surrounded by old buildings?’

We used to have several urban plazas, College Green, Smithfield, Newmarket, Cornmarket, Weaver’s Square and at least a dozen more smaller local spaces of real urban quality!

‘Why don’t we have a big market like the one in Barcelona?’

Well what’s the answer? we used to have the same large scale open air markets that we still see as a matter of routine in every other European city!

Now all we we have is a postage stamp sized, open toe sandal, over priced, ‘look I’m saving the planet’ organic market in Meetinghouse Square and it’s country cousins in DunLaoghaire and Rathfarnham.

IMO, you could spend a very usefull couple of hours following tourists around this city. Challenge yourself to look at the place through their eyes.

I’ve seen tourists on Winetavern Street taking photographs of that ivy covered 1990s office development opposite the Civic Offices, presumably out of sheer disbelief that there is nothing else to record, here in the core of the medieval city!

There’s another question it would be worth asking:

Who was in charge when a street with the medieval heritage, urban character and authentic tourism potential, of Winetavern Street turned into this?

Winetavern Street today.

Winetavern Street in the 50s

Some images to illustrate the points made above.

This is not about nostalgia, or beating ourselves up, it’s about taking a cold hard look at ourselves, without rose tinted glases. People misunderstand the term ‘Heritage’, often they think it’s an optional academic exercise to do with history books and museum exhibits, but heritage is the accumulated wealth of material that we’ve inherited and it comes with a duty of care.

Having an appreciation of heritage is one thing, but even this is largely meaningless unless it informs what we do next.

In the case of places like Winetavern Street, what we need to do next is recognize and analyse where we’ve gone wrong and get about fixing it. None of the houses in the 1950s photograph date to anything like the foundation of the street, but in their own, then, contemporary way, they bear witness to the organic development of the street in the diversity of their design, scale and plot patterns.

Sensitive contemporary urban development set-out on plots that reflect the burried property patterns could re-connect with this heritage, re-establish a streetscape at a hugely important part of the setting to Christchurch and maybe even put the odd wine tavern back on Winetavern Street for the weary, but satisfied, tourist to rest his tired legs at.

It’s certainly hard to see why such an inoffensive range of decent, characterful buildings had to be removed at all. Apart from the carpark entrance, the building line is still intact. I’ve long believed that the reinstatement of this side of Wt St, along with (?) Lane alongside Christchurch would provide a real area of character; it doesn’t need to be pastiche (although it’s important to retain the historic footprint of vanished buildings), but it can’t have the ‘bigfoot’ character of much current redevelopment. Although the same building form would not be appropriate, something like Cows Lane is what’s needed (with real shops and watering holes) – incidentally, is the proposal for Smock Alley Theatre progressing?
It’s interesting that the much-derided stuff on the E side of Wt St seems to be settling down into a quiet maturity – more than you can say for many contemporary developments.

When I saw Gunters second post earlier I started thinking about a street on Java and Borneo Eilands in Amsterdam. As part of the overall master-plan various architects were invited to design individual houses within pre-determined plots. The outcome was pretty impressive in my opinion. I will see if I can find any more information on it and post it here if I do. Anyway, something like this could work well here, couldn’t it? Would it detract from the open space within the Civic Offices, or could they be done in a manner so as to enhance that space?

I suppose what I am talking about isn’t a million miles away from the Group 91 ‘Making a Modern Street’ either? Or even some of what they were to go on and achieve in Temple Bar.

Probably the wrong thread to be getting into this, but . . .

A head on view of those houses at the top of Winetavern Street, including the fabled ‘Narrow House’.

The comprehensive study done on the Dublin’s walled city (can’t remember exact title), by McCullough Mulvin a couple of years ago seems to have vanished into the ether. Can’t find any mention of it on the DCC website. I think it included some notional new building for this site, possible of a museum nature?

I would strongly support the creation of a ‘Museum of Dublin’ especially since the Civic Museum on South William Street has vanished and the archaeological museum for the basement of the civic offices never materialized.

Any new ‘Museum of Dublin’ should definitely be located within the medieval core, but if it were to be located here on the Winetavern Street site, as a (presumably robust) contemporary civic building, it starts to compete with the cathedral where just decent, mixed use, contemporary in-fill, reflecting the original plot widths, would be more complementary to Christchurch, as the above buildings were in their day. Phil’s example from Amsterdam could be a pointer to how this could be done, as would be an up-dated version of the Group 91 ‘Making a Modern Street’ proposal.

In contrast, the High Street / Cornmarket frontage to St. Audoen’s Park, also in the medieval core, is a site that could really use a new civic building of city museum stature, both to redefine the space, and to exploit the considerable potential of the existing minor attraction that is old St. Audoen’s Church.

ha ha, that is funny, I literally pressed the update button about the ‘making a modern street’ and there was your post. Apologies for that

phil: my reservation about your proposal is that Java Eiland, although a very worthy idea, is pedestrian beyond belief. There are some very good buildings, some very poor buildings, and many very ordinary buildings, but the ensemble is dead compared to the real thing (which is a mere boatride away). There is a range of warehouses (whose name escapes me for the moment) on the north perimeter of the medieval city which I think works much better. During the day, Java Eiland is quite moribund.

Phil: That’s a sign that we’re on the right track.

johnglas: Agree with you that Java Eiland was a bit over praised at the time, but the idea is rock solid and if you transport it to a sloping site in a historical context with commercial use in the mix, now we’re cooking with gas.

well you’ll get no argument from me. i think that’s a shame. in fact i think it’s a crime. what they did to dublin in the past is the equivalent of somebody cutting the head off michelangelo’s david. and frankly, i would have no problem whatsoever with buildings like those being actually “restored” to their original appearance, like they do in germany…even if it’s not fashionable to consider such things. but of course this is all about restoring what is unique about dublin to dublin. it’s not about trying to be another branch of the european bourgeois city franchise.

Are these the ones you mean?

January ’06:

@johnglas wrote:

phil: my reservation about your proposal is that Java Eiland, although a very worthy idea, is pedestrian beyond belief. There are some very good buildings, some very poor buildings, and many very ordinary buildings, but the ensemble is dead compared to the real thing (which is a mere boatride away). There is a range of warehouses (whose name escapes me for the moment) on the north perimeter of the medieval city which I think works much better. During the day, Java Eiland is quite moribund.

Johnglas, I suppose the context of both is very different. All I was thinking of was how you go about trying to recreate a ‘traditional’ plot ratio without resorting to pastiche. I think I am familiar with the warehouse conversion you are referring to. Is it Entrepotdok? I think this is something very different to what we are talking about though.

Ctesiphon, that’s one of them. Although, I think I prefer what they achieved on Borneo.

phil: top marks for remembering Entrepotdok (love it, but it is quite different); ctesiphon – seriously atmospheric pics, but not a body in sight! Java Eiland is not a bad development, and many of the individual units are good (and they’ve tried hard with the quirky little bridges and the street furniture), but… It’s a good piece, but can’t be replicated in Dublin. The critical lesson, though, is that the development tries to capture the spirit of A’dam architecture and I’ll revise my opinion to say it’s a very worthy attempt. So what you need is a neo-vernacular for Dublin in this sensitive location.

@johnglas wrote:

So what you need is a neo-vernacular for Dublin in this sensitive location.

Yeah, exactly that. Something along the lines of Number 1 Castle Street:

http://ireland.archiseek.com/tesserae/000012.html

johnglas: ‘seriously atmospheric pics’ = ‘not a body in sight’. 🙂 It was a mouldy January day- I too would have been safely ensconced indoors had I not been so keen to see the buildings.

phil: neo-vernacular? Yes; 1 Castle Street as a model? G-d no.

I think I remember us discussing that building before Ctesiphon? Not a fan, no?

be interesting if we tried a so called mixed bag here…

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=6746&highlight=heuston+framework+plan

but most of the style would be banned by building regulations???? which gets me thinking mabye in future get out of flood clause 😛

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moncho_rey/2770888789/sizes/l/

@phil wrote:

I think I remember us discussing that building before Ctesiphon? Not a fan, no?

We sure did- it was in an old poll thread for some awards ceremony or other. If I recall correctly, the De Blacam & Meagher staff seemed to be on commission for the voting. 😉 And Yes, not a fan. I think there are some good ideas in it, but the proportions and detailing unsettle me to a considerable degree. I suspect the interior would be a different story, but I never did find that €2m under my gramps’s mattress. 🙂

Still, I’m in agreement re Group 91, neo-vernacular, etc.

Incidentally, I saw the west side of Winetavern Street today from on high, and though not great, it’s maybe not a million miles away from a modern interpretation of the Dublin urban vernacular.

ctesiphon: you remind me of my partner, who waits for ages until all ‘the people’ are out of the picture! As I have been known to remark: ‘It’s the f&*$%@g people that make the city!’. it reminds me of my planning dissertation many years ago, where I carefully snapped a busy street intersection, only to have the chemist (as it was in those days) carefully edit out everything at street level, ‘because there were too many people in it’!

Not the first time I’ve heard that accusation! I have a photographer friend who takes almost exclusively ‘people photos’, and he can’t understand the appeal of a depopulated snap.

In the above examples, I didn’t even have to try for emptiness- there really was nobody around.

If it’s people you want…

Re gunter’s mention of St Audoen’s (above), here’s a pic of the interior, taken during a concert earlier this year.

Hakon Stene (partly hidden), Nils Økland and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. Not pictured (because he was playing the amazing organ)- Sigbjørn Apeland.