alastair
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the mercury (under glass) idea is long gone. Someone had a bit of cop on and pointed out it was dangerous stuff. How they expected it to last when the wee uplighters in the path at the millenium bridge lasted about a week escapes me.
Originally posted by Rory W
Of two recent pointsThe eyelets are to radiate light (via i think 70,000 LEDS)
Nah, there are 4 large eyelets above the leds/lamp area. probably for hoisting up, but might also be handy for maypole/gallows conversion.
Originally posted by fjp
Alastair: “a bus depot aerial”????????????????????
Not as mad as it sounds. The depot lies between me and the spike, and I’ve been watching the top of the crane from my window the last few days. When the crane had disappeared this morning, and there was a tall slender object in roundabout the same spot, I jumped to conclusions. As I say, my head was fuzzy.
I’m concerned about the ‘clean up job’ needed for the spike as it stands at the moment. It’s manky on the north earl street side, and there are bits of tape etc hanging off it quite high up. I would have thought the best place to sort that out was when it’s on the ground. Are they going to dangle a cleaning guy from a crane halfway up the thing when its finished or use those eyelets at the top to have someone absail up/down and clean it that way? Seems needlessly difficult.
oops. sorry I’d a fuzzy head on me earlier. I mistook a dublin bus depot aerial for the spike (!really!)
any more cliches you care to roll out?
an irish entry didn’t win because they weren’t as good. the best of the bunch was chosen (just like every other fair competition). Obviously it’s a subjective decision, but spare me the need to throw up second rate irish options.
You don’t like needles? Fair enough. It’s a simple concept/structure, but theres no requirement to complicate a concept for complexity’s sake. By your criteria we should have some baroque contraption that defies simple reproduction. Those Mies buildings are a bit simple too aren’t they? A child of three could draft them up no bother.
Originally posted by EoinN
San Francisco has more homeless than Fargo, for instance; And many more tourists.
Further, the city spent $400 million on homeless people this last year. The transient population trends at about 4,000 at any one time; so that is $100,000 each.Lots more expensive than the spire: and didn’t solve the problem.
completely off topic, but that’s complete nonsense (of the sort propagated by the bill o’reillys and rush limbaughs of this world)
There are no reliable figures for the homeless population of SF, but it’s in the 5,500 – 6,000 bracket, and the budget allocated to dealing with the problem in SF stood at around $30 million in 2000
(see http://www.sfbg.com/News/34/28/other.html )and I don’t think anyone was suggesting pitting tourism v homelessness. The issue was where is the right area to spend taxes.
Originally posted by AndrewP
Of course everyone has a right to their opinion, irrespective of education. But in a rational society, you have to give greater weight to better- informed opinions.
…
If you take the moral argument to its conclusion, the Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal would never have been built – useless monuments in countries full of poverty.
I don’t care where they went to school, but I think most people in this country don’t care much about their built environment. So I’m not paying much attention to the vox pops.I’d agree with most of your points but…
This isn’t a ‘rational society’ issue. It’s about art (to a greater or lesser degree), and art has little to do with rationality. The role of civic art is fraught with uncertainties and conflict, but it does seem to be about dialogue, and shouldn’t be defined solely by an elite of any kind.
The Eiffel tower was built with a useful purpose in mind; the proclaimation of France as a world leading empire with science and technology to rival the best. It may not have ‘done’ anything, but it’s significance as a standard was obvious to all. The Taj Mahal wasn’t a civic project (and had a defined purpose, just like the pryamids), so it doesn’t really equate.
When you spend public monies on any project without ‘practical’ benefit you are bound to get a lot of dissent. Personally I think that the public cost/social return equation for the spike is probably better than Abbotstown (If it had happened, and certainly better than the money spent for the nothing we did get). I wouldn’t read any sort of antipithy towards progressive architecture into it (hmmm. on second thoughts).
Originally posted by GregF
Very obvious to see then that the Irish general public are thick when it comes to the visual arts and architecture…..that they are pessimistic and ignorant….. where as the German lady was more optimistic and open minded.
Sums up Irish society and so much for our over rated education system.making any judgements based on three individuals selectively quoted by a journo is the height of folly.
I would imagine design education is far superior in germany though (ie they have some).
I’m a fan of the spike too (also a bit disappointed at the visibility of the panels, and hope they clean up the scuffs visible on the east side of it), but the notion that the great unwashed shouldn’t comment on a public venture, paid for with their money, is both elitist and misguided.
You don’t have to be a health care manager to comment on the operation of tallaght or monaghan hospital. If your perception was that they were being mismanaged/underfunded you would have no problem with complaining. No-one is going to die from a lapse of judgement on a piece of civic art (unless the engineers get it wrong) but the same criteria apply. It’s a CIVIC project, and joe soap is as much the client as the next man.
Education and appreciation of art/design/architecture is something we have far too little of in this country, but I won’t be signing up to an elitist clique telling everbody else what is good for them, with no recourse. Romania anyone?
the guinness barges had the ability to lower their chimney stacks, and the matt talbot wasn’t there.
whats obviously called for is a submarine with retractable legs (say eight) for walking west of Heuston station.
is pretty stylish, if a bit tricky to navigate
hard to tell from that (pic), since nothing seems to be elevated (median, pavements etc).
I’m not sure I like all this shotblasting talk as well. why couldn’t they just leave it as a simple reflective surface for the whole height? Shotblasting leaves the door open to kitsch, and all this celtic spiral stuff on the plinth/base isn’t a good omen.
the base is elevated isn’t it?
that would stop ram raiders (unless they set up a dukes of hazzard style ramp)I quite like the 60’s section. but then I liked a lot of the Roches Stores facade as well. A restoration job, and a decent branding/signage makeover (not the horrid job they recently got) would have been my choice for this rare example of late 60’s (?) dept store design.
Feel free to pull down the stephens green centre though.
and wouldn’t boyers, with a basic restoration, make a fantastic upmarket boutique dept store? It could be a gorgeous building with a little thought.
The effort I can understand, but what’s the overhead in hosting the site? Why don’t you just delegate some of the editing/monitoring tasks?
It would be a pity to lose the resource.
Originally posted by Paul Clerkin
… My lawyer, a copyright expert who is helping me recoup money from people who have borrowed my photographs for their websites reckons that …I’m surprised you are taking this line. The notional revenue generated by any website piccy must be far far behind the hassle and cost of dealing with a lawer –_surely?
not that I condone nicking pics. I just know I wouldn’t bother chasing someone (much) if I caught them at it.
I like tom humpheries (?) suggestion; the irish bottle company land is a pretty good site. no immediate local residents and a central location. Flog a bunch of the land at abbotstown, revamp landsdown, and stick a nice new 40,000 capacity stadium at irishtown.
