brunel
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Well i think in the ’70’s a bomb shattered much of the glass cladding and thereafter the observation deck was closed… Those responsible for the bombing at Liberty Hall (and also at Sackville Place i think ?!?) was the cause of some debate, with both the IRA and British Intelligence suspected…
Well to be fair it was Thomas A. McLoughlin, an Irish engineer, who submitted proposals and convinced the government to dam the Shannon and build an electric power station at Ardnacrusha… the detailed design of which was carried out by Siemens-Schuckert
It just gets better and better !!! From today’s Indo:
“A judge yesterday gave the go-ahead for the first fully-fledged off-licences on Dublin’s O’Connell Street despite opposition from the city council, the gardai and business interests…”
“Mary Conway, city council project planner for O’Connell Street, said the existing use of the Centra premises was contrary to stated high value mixed-use objectives which the local authority was seeking. Converting part of them to full-scale off-licences would be a further intensification of this undesirable use…”
“Gerry Hynes, a director of the company which owns Flanagans the only non-fast food restaurant on O’Connell Street said problems caused by street drinking were even worse than gardai had outlined, as these were only instances of reported crime…”
Only ONE non-fast food restuarant ?!? For f#ck sake !!
Interesting idea none the less… especially if traffic was taken off College Green…
From “The Story of Dublin” by Chart (1907):
“For more than a century the Bank of Ireland has now held undisturbed possession of the classical building that was once the home of a native parliament. Many Irishmen, however, have fond memories of the past and fond hopes for the future of the “old house in College Green,” and, even to this day, as political processions file past the Ionic colonnades, hats are lifted in token of respect and remembrance.”
Unfortunately considering all the recent construction around the government buildings I can’t see it happening…
Samuel Fitzpatrick in “Dublin: A Historical and Topographical Account of the City” confirms what GH said regarding the sale: “…the passing of the Act of Union in 1800 left them [the Parliament buildings] untenanted, and two years later they were sold to the Bank of Ireland for £40,000, less than half their original cost, subject to a ground rent of £240 per annum.”
Paul’s section on the buildings here also adhere’s to the ‘rumour’ that they were not to be used as a parliment… and I’m sure I’ve read this elsewhere…
But wasn’t it given to Bank of Ireland under the condition that is was NEVER to be used as a parliment ?!?
The sickening thing about all these projects, is that if/when they are ever built all the slimy politicans are the first ones to be seen, smiling for the photographs and acting like they built it all themselves !! 😡
There is a pretty good article here in today’s Indo about this… makes some very valid points and looks at the problem from both sides.
On another note, it is interesting to note, regarding all the uproar in Leitrim, that most of the planning decisions rejected by An Bord Pleanala were rejected by the planners in Leitrim. However Leitrim county manager has the right to over-rule such decisions… surely not a system that will result in any form of sustainable development.
But wasn’t the fact that a conference centre is in itself unsustainable (financially) not a major point before ?!? Hence the requirement for government/European support (and I presume the deadlines are far in the past now) and major commercial developments to make it viable.
Dublin as a city benefits from such a facility as all the conference goers, who’s basic costs are covered by their organisations/companies, are then fee to spend loads etc etc.
Fair enough but have you seen that hotel in reality ?!? The cladding is an absoute disgrace – it looks horrible !! I was so disappointed with it as it had massive potential…
Only hope is that is that in the future maybe they will reclad it, but considering Munchin house is still facing it, i won’t hold my breath !!
The initial sketchs for this hotel were pretty cool… there was a single pier located in and protruded out of the water which made it pretty dramatic…
Just to add, the company in charge of the transport system in Stockholm proudly claim that “almost” half of its costs are paid for via income from ticket sales !! Almost Half !! So expecting CIE/Dublin to make a profit every year is just a joke…
Well if they ditch plans for the Metro then looks like we’ll all continue to complain about the transport problem for the next 20years…
Living in Stockholm now, a city with a pretty decent transport system and stats show that during peak periods 7 out of 10 passengers use public transport to the inner city !! And the Metro is central to this – in fact all the other bus and suburban trains work off it, ie connect to it at relevant points…
From personal experience, I’ve found out that you just cannot beat the Metro when going from A to B even when taking the bus on a similar route in quiet traffic…
A metro is the only way to move numbers in mass in the city centre quickly and efficiently… Why can’t they see this !!
In the interests of a fair debate it is probably worth having a look at an article in yesterdays Sunday Indo here, even if it is a little biased towards saving the trees…
Brenden O’Connor talks some shite about them as well here, and rounds it off by saying: “I don’t know about you, but I think that I shall never see, A Spike that’s lovely as a tree”… I can’t wait for the day when he has to eat his words…
Well DaveR pronouncing “Great. A pompous architects board” is hardly the best way to enter a discussion…
People here are not all architects, we just feel that O’Connell street does not benefit from the existing trees and feel that everyone will benefit from the upgrading… hence politicians jumping in for 5 mins of fame is somewhat frowned upon…
Of course u are entitled to your opinion “that [the] sterile shite we are being offered instead is a poor substitute”, as are we to differ…
PS As far as I can see your post on the 8th is and always was there….
Rumour has it that they knocked down some trees to build it too… My god and to think those same trees could have witnessed the Battle of the Boyne… Disgraceful !! 🙁
sure they could have been the oldest trees in the world at 5000 yrs old as well… Think about what we have lost !! 😡
Ok please excuse my pathetic sarcasm… just can’t understand people sometimes… :confused:
Suppose one of the few/only examples is the Herbert Park developement in Ballsbridge, which proves that we do have the technology…
Its the same in Galway… the new plans for Eyre Square have been delayed for over two years now… I went to a public meeting about it years ago and was impressed by the plans… but I couldn’t believe the amount of complaining people were doing about trees that were ‘only’ planted in the ’60’s… they do nothing for the square and such complaining has now stopped a quality development from going ahead…
The article in today’s Times “October 25 2002 : City centre stadium is favoured in Dunloe submission” sounds really interesting… is there any chance that somebody could email this exile the article ?!? Would be greatly appreciated…
Well the corpo have to be complemented for going for something different for Dublin (i.e. different from the existing)… however just because calatrava is ‘famous’ does not necessarily guarantee original and signature bridges… and as we have seen the two bridges for Dublin with not be signatures in the way the Alamillo bridge is for Seville. it is worth noting that when he received this commission that he only had one bridge of note, Bac le Roda in Barcelona, built so the commissioners went out on somewhat of a limb.
A design competition probably would have been better and given local and lesser known designers a chance.
Still i thought the idea of the harp was pretty cool… pity is isn’t unique to Dublin…
Well the photographs of the two bridge models and surroundings on Calatrava’s site are EXACTLY the same – hence there was obviously an error on the part of the web administrator.
I agree totally that the concepts are indeed similar, however the two spans are much different, around 120 m for Macken and over half this for the Spanish version, hence the two bridges will inevitably be different.
The proposal for Macken St, i.e. a 120m span cable stay bridge swivelling about it base is very complex, and I am sure that the cost of such an arrangement will prove to be relatively high… lets hope the Corpo can afford it !!
It should be noted however that the link I gave was actually to a bridge that has been built in Argentina !! however the possibilities for different bridge forms is somewhat limited, hence it is inevitable that certain design concepts will be used again. This does not detract from the bridge, as long the bridge is suited to its location.
A look at the link below illustrates the more ‘flamboyant’ cable stay bridges built recently… and shows that the number of possibilities is limited…
http://www.launidad.org.mx/galeria.htm
Note the above link has quite a few images so may take a little while to load !!
