Andrew Duffy
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Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the M7 is in Kildare and Laois and is being extended to fill the gap, the M4 is in Kildare and is being extended westward, the M3 will be in Meath and Westmeath, half of the M1 is in Louth, the M11 and N11 dual carriageways are in Wicklow and Wexford, the M8 will be in Tipperary and Limerick. Dublin has the M50 (tolled) and part of the M1 (tolled).
And it’s not Dubliners’ shit that’s polluting the groundwater in the West of Ireland. Ours doesn’t smell, you’ll find.
Second that – Ardnacrusha was about nation-building as much as it was about generating electricity. It took up 20% of the budget for the five (?) years it took to build. American engineers designing the Hoover Dam visited it, and it set up Seimens (again – ?) as a major engineering company.
I would imagine that the day ruralites pay a fair share of the tax revenue used to pay for their motorways and to clean up their pollution is the day they can give out about those of us living in the Greater Dublin Area. Grow up; you make yourself look like a fool and make others think that everyone from the country side is a fool as well.
It’s the same as when a baboon points at his big pink backside. Although most of the boy racers seem to be trying to impress other young males…
It was a restaurant for a year or two after opening (1964-1965), and apparently popular amongst Dublin society, but the owner soon converted the floor into his personal offices.
I can’t understand this hatred of O’Connell Bridge House – it can only be the old chestnut of height, even though it is barely even a midrise building. I doubt you’ll find a single tourist who has any feelings, positive or negative, about it. Try mentally rubbing out the 30 metre high lager advertisement next time you look at it – it will improve.
I find it unusual that the lumpen, pointlessly frilly form of Liberty Hall is better in your estimation, Graham.
I think VR in Finland is a good benchmark – similar population densities and distributions in the two countries, VR operates high speed services regularly on a big network, and makes a profit, albeit without having responsibility for the rails themselves.
To clarify a slightly annoying point – Nottingham’s tram line is single track, so should have cost about half that of the Luas per kilometer. Luas is also finished to an exceptionally high (possibly excessively high) standard apart from the ugly lampposts.
I find the attitude of the tenants far worse than the buildings. Dublin Corporation, champion of public transport, has a dedicated traffic light and box junction to facilitate access to its carpark. On top of that, doing so from Cook St. involves switching from driving on the left to driving on the right, while crossing a four-lane carriageway. This is madness, but the people who would outlaw it work in the building. The other entrance to the carpark is on Fishamble St., which is too small and blind to have such a large office facility using it as an access road.
The attitude of the building to Fishamble St. is quite poor also; walking down there from Lord Edward St. feels like entering the bowels of some large machine.
Apart from that, I think they are passable; very much products of their time. The STW block in front is, typically, very like a corporate HQ in an American suburban business park.A tacky interior to an art deco cocktail lounge would be pretty authentic. Must pay a visit this weekend.
Came across this:
http://www.treasuryholdings.ie/development/project_detail.asp?id=118&category=Residential&cat=1
Uninspiring does not even come close. This is another design from Shay Cleary to go with the Benidorm-ish Santry Cross in Ballymun. If this is the standard of architecture we’re going to get I can see the doors being snapped shut on high-rise for another twenty years.
I think the point about the Metro is that rather than being a good transport system is was a way to give vast sums of money to political cronies and consultants. The orbital metro line looks like a good idea, whereas the airport one achieves little except to dump airport passengers at the Green. A heavy rail link to the Airport and the proposed airport tram line to serve Ballymun and Swords would be great. In fact, all the proposed tramlines, plus the extra kilometre between the Green and Connolly, combined with DART on all the city lines and the tunnel would be the makings of a real transport system – adding the orbital metro, service to Dunboyne and Navan and extending the airport link to meet the Dunboyne spur would make it even better.
I sense sarcasm…
What is so similar to the Platform for Change? That expensive clone of the London Underground map had nothing to do with any of Irish Rail’s plans – the heavy rail link to the airport and underground tunnel have been doing the rounds for a decade at this stage, and using the Phoenix Park tunnel and Midland Line to bring Kildare commuter trains into Spencer Dock is just common sense. Irish Rail also realise the importance of car parks at train stations whereas PFC didn’t. Oh, and the Luas, while not an Irish Rail project, predates PFC as well.
There’s a mention of it here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-985478,00.html
…but I read a more in-depth article a while ago, possibly on unison.ie where there’s no search facility.
Looked like the second normal light from the top was already broken last night. If this is the case, and in light (fnar) of the leaked memos about design team interference, Ian Ritchie should be ashamed of himself.
Searching is usually a good idea:
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2451
