Anteater

I live around 100m from Moore Street and around the corner from all of the “improvements” listed. Unfortunately I have to agree with you on pretty much every point you make.
The most disturbing one however is the Wolfe Tone Park development.

To impose a European solution to a Dublin space is worrying to say the least. I can’t fault the design of the space. I do have a problem with the intention. This park (or whatever it assumes it is) belongs in Scandinavia or Germany. It isn’t a solution to any problems that the original park had (i.e.. on a nice day the packed original had a few drunks lying around on the grass which begs the question why not fix the railings and put a few more Gardaí in the area?). On the contrary in removing the railings and opening up the space they created a plaza not a park.
Granted the space is pretty at night. The sculptural nature of the seating and lighting is heightened by the fact that it is completely empty.

The fact is that imposing European ideals on an architecturally uneducated population is a complete waste of time. The space isn’t used correctly because the population simply have no frame of reference in Ireland. The erection of the Spiegel tent last summer was a glimmer of what it was intended to be. Ironically they couldn’t have music there after 11pm as it disturbed the locals – a truly wonderful development considering what a wasteland the area was up until the recent past.

The reality with Moore Street is that the Corporation simply don’t know what to do with Dublin. Allowing the Jury’s Inn to mark the Parnell Street entrance to Moore Street pretty much makes that statement. How the word architectural could be applied to the building defies belief. If Architecture is the result of any form of intention then Doyle Hotels have now decided what Moore Street will look like. I am assuming this because it is the first new structure built there and will of course pre-empt the style of architecture of all development on Moore Street in the future i.e.. Nineteen-Eighties UK Office Building. Just what Dublin needs!
Now that Bloom’s Lane has been taken over by the Italians (the only significant feature of this development is their lively presence), there is the exciting possibility that the Scandinavian styles of Wolfe Tone Park/Bloom’s Lane and the UK office building style of Parnell Street will someday meet up on Liffey Street and slug it out for whatever title.

By the way I think that the original mosaic on Moore Street was designed by Orla Kelly.