a boyle
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I like it , it simple not too showy. Very nicely done ! I particulary approve of it being flush with the main building. Top marks !
please take we take this thread down from the website. The building is so frightfully awfull that just thinking about it, and what the powers that be did to georgian dublin upsets me !
i fully accept what your are saying.You have pointed out the basic difference of opinion. I do think that the improvement to the area in terms of new people (who hopefully will get rid of a few winos junkies) and some new shops just about negate the admittedly average building.
Perhaps after years off seeing utter muck built my expectations are too low. Honestly i was surprised that it is as good as it is. Perhaps i should expect better. I just don’t see it happening.
On a more positive note I had the oppurtunity to look inside the house being refurbished by the kings inn and , and Hhhhm hhhhmmm it looks good! Would you agree ?
I totally disagree. It would not be a good idea to encourage a change to mix office res use , that would enevitably results in structural changes to the buildings ( firedoors , lifts ,etc etc) . You also display an ignorance of the street’s current state. Infact except for the two houses the council is trying to buy in order to restore, and one other house, the rest of the houses are in very good nick on the inside .
The reason that the bricks on the outside look poorly is because noone is very sure how to restore them . You see the bricks were made from the clay dug out to make the basements/foundations for the the terrace. As such they are a little tricky to replace!
A good few of the houses are lived in which is as it should be. Increasing the number of people using the street would totally change the feel of the street. It was built as a cul de sac for the mega rich. It has the same quiet residential feel it always had. ( excepting when it was used as tenements ) . By staying hidden from bolton street it keeps it’s quiet charm.
If the new building was inline with the terrace it would give the impression that originally the site of the ‘new building’ formed part of the original terrace : it didn’t. Henrietta street as originally layed out started where the cobbles start today.
A few people have said that it looks poorly from kings street and bolton street , fine. It looks quite good from henrietta street and that is what actually matters.
I have looked at it closely . The reason the brickwork looks this way, i suspect is because it is an attempt do it as it was done a few hundred years ago.I can’t be sure however.
To my eye the brickwork is similar to the brickwork on some of the buildings that form the terrace. perhaps i am too kind. I expect that it will weather quite well in time. Much better than number 2 across the road which looks like it’s made of shiny new orange lego bricks, although i know it to be around ten years old.
allright fair enough, it’s no peach. I am just more of a realist: there simply isn’t the money there to fund a beauty at this spot. On one side there is noisy bolton street and the other council flats. Despite it being no peach it does in fact fit in very well when you stand on henrietta street.
The photos above mostly focus on the bolton street view. I am going to stop posting on this topic , it is too easy to slate something instead of taking the whole impact into account. I feel that having more people living here with perhaps a few shops in an okay building is pretty good for the area. Henrietta street might deserve much better , but the money isn’t there to make it happen, so there is little point in sobbing about it. Overall it’s a four of ten , a bare pass.
Yes 1 castle street is much better. BUT this is the idea i want to get across. castle street has very little of note at that end of the street , and so the modern building has become the main focus of interest at that end of the street.
This is not what was required on henrietta street.Having a masterpiece like 1 castle street would take away from the terrace in my view. Sometimes boring is good! .It does exactly what it says on the tin ( get lot’s of people into a run down poorer part of the city, while not detracting too much from the terraces )
While it could be better: At least it’s new money going into the northside, and with enough new money maybe some of the run down buildings in the area will get investment in the future. I just don’t think it deserves the rant above.
@Andrew Duffy wrote:
They aren’t Georgian, they are 1940s replicas. It is possible that some of the doorcases are original.
If it means bringing new life a run down nook of the city then tear away.
The doors are nothing special: they are narrow and very plain. And the photos show that the insides had nothing of interest. We can’t keep everything. Stick to saving original things! Too much nostalgia and we would get nowhere!
Being a modern building it was never going to match the old houses. If they had tried to copy the georgian look it would have looked naf ( which is what i think of number 2 on the other side of the street.However if it was a great modern architectural piece in itself it would take away from the old houses.
While it could be better it does what it needs to. Scrolling up you can clearly see that the brickwork matches the old houses quite well. One of the photos shows that the line of the brickwork extends to the top of the old terrace. Because of this when standing on henrietta street the buildling feels like a natural extension of the old terrace.
In sum it’s modern and plain ,but this is probably a good thing.
I see it in the same way as the building to the left of the mansion house. Not too showy.It is worth pointing out that this site was not part of the original terrace.There was no previous masterpiece on this site to replace. The terrace is as it is since laid out ( well just about ).This building sits on an add on to the street.
It is not likely to ever happen. The original besign had the two side buildings approx 15 metres closer to the liffey. Thus it had the feel of the bank of ireland, or the sphinx. Also the dome was not open at all as it is now. It used to house the law library.
@jimg wrote:
The reason Pearse St/Wesland row are the way they are is because the buildings are owned and used by Trinity]
@Devin wrote:
Pearse Street/Westland Row area to become a shopping destination – I wouldn’t have thought these streets … were that suitable for this.
In fact no, not correct. Arnootts have opened an new shop on abbey street, and they are trying to buy a whole chunk of the street so they can expand and open on to it. In fact i do believe i heard a director of arnotts on newstalk or todayfm saying that they were changing there entire strategy to open onto abbey street since it now so many people come to arnotts from the luas. This will take time but it will and is happening.
At harcourt street starbucks and another coffee shop have opened. And the old restored shop across from the spar(harcourt road/upper candem street) has some health food store as tenants. There is now a whole series a little business between the luas stop and upper candem street. And it’s not finished: there is a dead site which will be redeveloped.
Westland row is not suitable for shops , i did not say it was. Pearse street is perfect however. Trinity have applied to turn their tranch of the road back into shops and the irish times is moving. So the whole length of pearse street and d’olier street is ripe for redevelopment.
This is what the wide street commisioners wanted. just look at a map the whole city is centred around the westmorland/do’lier street triange. There are two shopping district comming off this triangle ( o’connell street/henry street AND Dame/Georges/Grafton street. ) Pearse street is wide and grand . it deserves nice shops on it ( and dublin doesn’t have enough shops in it : thats why rents are so high on grafton street)
This routing B is fantastic ( as long as it uses oconnell bridge). People can move from dart/red/green lines by changing once. This is good, very good. The land between Pearse street and the liffey could be completely redeveloped ( it’s dead at the minute ) Consider the redevelopment of smithfeild.
To the gentleman who disagrees with dirigism: consider dundrum or smithfield . No one wanted to go there , but they built lot’s of appartments lots of shops and a luas line. Now dundrum is buzzing with life which is good . and smithfield will be soon. the whole quandrant between pearse street , the liffey , d’olier street and the grand canal redevelopment could be a new district of the city.
So A just reinforces the current traffic problem of funnelling everyone down dawson street. It looks horrid at college green (Remember that the City Council want to remove all traffic from college green eventually) .
B regenerates a dead part of the city. It allows much easier changes from green to dart . It won’t actually be much slower than A. That’s because the A route crosses so many very very busy pedestrians junctions. It continues to support and expand the vision of the wide streets commision. What more do you want ?
OH WAIT the new bridge idea IS bad. Anyone who has looked at Yes Minister will know that route B was thought up by someone with vision. Then someone with politics realised it was little too good. So change the route from d’olier street/o’connell bridge to a new bridge, and then everyone will be so hung up on the bridge they won’t give it any real thought.
That what these choices are: everything except A is just a decoy to make you feel like there is a choice.
Do i have any support ?
When the Eiffel Tower went up there were riots. It took decades to be accepted no mind admired. The spike is simple and elegant at night. In time we will come to like it, no doubt about it.
The posts so far don’t seem to realise that the Abbey won’t sit in the pond, the pond will be fill in. Thus a complete waste of a pond.
Kerry Solictor go figure.
No I strongly reassert that route A requires moving the buses out of the way , otherwise it will be messy for both tram and bus.
Route B might be the longest but in terms of speed will not be far behind route A as the roads it uses are nice and straight.
The improvement to the whole city center east of trinity cannot be understated. I feel that the point has to be repeated: it will tie in the whole pearse street area back into the city. And the City is in dire need of more retail space.
Just as pedestrianising Grafton Street allowed it to become the focus for Shopping on the southside, route B will allow east of trinity to become a destination in itself.
It might sound dirigiste but you should use transport infrastructure to send people where you want to send them not where they want to go! the M50 is a case in point of building roads where people want to go. Route B allows for MORE people to go to more places than before, and that is the crux of my point.:)
Route A just won’t work unless all the buses are pushed east and west. The problem is that the tram does not have the capacity to service this route by itself. Anyone coming into town on the 46A and hoping to change to the tram would be sorely disapointed. Also it duplicates any future underground metro.
Although there is much critisism of route B i don’t think it is fair. Consider. whichever route is picked westland row is going to be reserved for buses or trams. Cars will be diverted completely away from dawson street kildare street nassau and westland row. Route B has the least impact on buses because all the bus routes will CROSS the tram line , not run alongside it.
Pearse street is set for a radical change anyway and having the tram run along it would allow it to be a new shopping street which dublin really needs.
It connects with the Dart.The new bridge is a bad bad idea. but running the tram line along D’Olier street is a good idea, since the Irish Times is relocating. D’Olier street could also see a new lease of life.
Keeping O’Connell street uncluttered is a point well made but the tram could turn left or right onto Abbey Street.
Route B finally ends the Trinity Effect where everything to the east of the College is dead by comparison with College Green.
The tram can’t service route A properly so why not do something different ? Route B really is very very good , EXCEPT that ugly extra bridge.
