ctesiphon
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That sounds like a great idea, dodger. There wouldn’t even need to be that much clearance over the water as the canoes and boats that use that stretch sit so low.
I’ve often thought it was a pity that the UCD boathouse is such a shed, compared to the Trinity one. Some people see it as a reflection of the respective campuses, which I can’t agree with. I’m a fan of the UCD campus (once wrote a thesis on it), but not of the boathouse. I spent a year in the UCD boatclub, and I remember the envious glances we used to cast across to the southside. In fact, almost all the buildings along this north bank stretch are pretty poor (with the exception of one of the boatclubs- Commercial? Neptune?- and Jim the Boatman’s house beside the UCD boatclub).
It would be great if the link could be made on the axis of the park, but there would be merit in it going across the weir too.Agreed, KB2, he’s one of my favourite architects of all time. Both his classical stuff and his Arts and Craftsy domestic stuff. There’s a house in Donegal that potentially had his hand in it too, but not confirmed. Loooong catslide roof, those chimneys, etc.
Thanks for the info Graham- I was hoping that the lack of mention of works to the interior of the park meant that it wasn’t being touched. I know what JF means about the park being detached from the city, but I don’t know how that can be rectified. The new scheme might help, but the pedestrian priority route still has to cross a very busy road, and the entrance past Trinity Boat Club lacks the requisite formality (and is not on the axis). Yet more evidence of the destructiveness of our old roads programme, I suppose. 🙁I did search before the first post, honest, but only found this now. 😮
Doesn’t say if there are to be works elsewhere within the park. Still curious…I know it well, and have often wondered about it too, particularly that unusual sheeting on the top floor- looks a bit like an old iron water-tank (though obviously isn’t- who’d glaze over one?!). The whole area is fascinating for having a few former shops like this one converted to full residential use- gives a feel for the time when ‘just popping around the corner to the shop’ wasn’t just a figure of speech, and when there was a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker around those corners, rather than a takeaway and an off-licence.
But I can’t answer your question, I’m afraid- just taking the opportunity to remember when I lived not too far away from there.
Has it recently had a facelift? Don’t remember the windows being casement, and I thought there was a name on the fascia above the shopfront (though I could be thinking of a neighbouring building- a graphics shop springs to mind…?).Thanks for that, Morlan.
I’m pretty handy when it comes to invisible mending with a needle and thread, but photos have thus far eluded me. Funny how the corner buiding in the composite takes on a slightly Gehryesque feel with its bendy walls. 🙂That’s a persuasive argument you make about Stephen Street. The new opening will certainly be an interesting addition to the pedestrian adventure, and the new building suits the context of the Dunlop better. If the George’s St ones were to be kept, it sounds like a fair trade-off.
@Graham Hickey wrote:
prints disposed of once their original purpose has been fulfilled,
If only you knew the truth… 😮
I have the hoarding tendency (disease?)- I recently spent some time, not entirely without occasional moments of enjoyment, throwing out a bunch of newspapers, some dating back to 1999. Just, sort of, never got round to it. They made for interesting reading.
So it won’t surprise you to know that photos don’t really get thrown away. I took the digital plunge a few months ago.kefu- while I was on George’s St today I checked (and nearly broke my ankle on the kerb outside the Globe as I was looking up- the things I do for Archiseek 🙂 ) and Castle House and Wicklow House are almost the same building- both are parts of the monster. Yamamori is in the Walton’s School of Music building- a (probably) once fine Victorian building whose ground floor has been horribly mucked about, with almost full glazing and a weird mezzanine level. Most odd.
Here are those pics of the old corner pre-redevelopment. Sorry for the quality, but they’re digital pics of 4-5 year old prints sellotaped together. 😮 Should be sufficient to get a feel for what was there originally. As you can see, there were a couple of Georgians (see the bulky chimney stack?) on Stephen Street- this was the site of the fire I mentioned previously. And you can make out, just about, the buildings that once stood on the George’s St side of the Dunnes site, though as is so often the way the ones I really want to show aren’t the focus of the pic, and it’s now too late to rectify.
Seems my previous description (“a mixture of relatively decent and somewhat non-descript three- and four-storey nineteenth century (?) ones”) wasn’t too far off. 😎 I particularly like the pair with the bold cornice below attic level (which are probably early 20th c.- I have a more recent pic of their demolition, showing what seems to be concrete frame construction).
A fine and fitting obituary, Graham. I second all you said. Thanks for getting the pics before it was too late.
Cosgrave Bros have a tendency to put a date on most of their projects- I’ve even seen it on a fairly innocuous late 1980s scheme of sheltered cul-de-sac housing out in Monkstown. Not poor stuff, but just not all that pride-worthy (and a date does seem to imply an eye on posterity).
However, dates are a god-send to the inventory compiler! (Yes, NIAH town surveys back in the day were fully comprehensive, the logic being that: 1> it’s best to do it all in one visit rather than in stages; and 2> it’s up to future generations to judge what we produce today.)TP-
Do you see archiseek as the contemporary equivalent of 1920s coffee houses? 🙂 Now there’s a thought!Aye- not a bad little programme, but I could have done with more detail on the building and less focus on the shenanigans and rigmarole. Seemed to be a documentary on the whole process of going to and being at the Biennale rather than a profile of O’D&T and/or the building. Though as Paul said above it was a “documentary film of Ireland’s award-winning exhibit” (my italics) rather than about the building. We should have read the small print. 🙂
And agreed, it was a curious excerpt from the reading, though maybe they thought too much detail on the Christian Bros baytin’ him around the yard would be off-putting for our delicate sensibilities?kefu- I think Sosume became The Dragon?
jimg- I know what you mean about those previous buildings. While they might not have been first-rank city buildings, they were important constituents of this varied streetscape and contributed much to its character.
Graham/TLM- afaik, the Dunnes building is to house their head office, though I don’t know what the groundfloor is to be used for- looks like retail. Perhaps the Dunnes outlet in the Market Arcade will be moving? I doubt it, as the other location seems ideal and must get significantly more footfall that the west side of the street.Off to try and find those other pics in the ‘archive’ (read: top of the wardrobe).
td- I direct you to fergus’s post above for the origin of the planners/bricks comment. I direct you further to the smilie attached to my ‘yay for planners’ comment.
Also, anyone who’s ever been in hospital will tell you that it’s the nurses that really know the score. 😉 In fact, maybe you’re right, in that the doctors swan into the ward/room doling out instructions in a high-handed manner which the nurses must then translate into practical actions…Though I’d like to point out for the avoidance of doubt that I fundamentally disagree with your analogy. For the record, I was just being light-hearted in the paragraph above.
Were you involved in the design of 1 Castle Street, perhaps?
For sure, notjim- particularly as the recently sold Stag’s Head is slowly rechristening itself the Stag’s and Hen’s Head. Another one bites the dust.
Long live the Long Hall (so much more bearable since the smoking ban- must have been one of the worst ventilated pubs in the city).
Was anyone ever in the Long Hall when it had its actual long hall, i.e. the screened entrance hall running the length of the bar? I was but a bairn when it was taken out. There’s a photocopied illustration of it behind the bar.That was Mannix Flynn, playwright and thorn in the side of the establishment. Spent time in Letterfrack in its original incarnation. I think his performance might have been an extract from ‘James X’. Not what you’d call a play, exactly, but it was performed in Project, Liberty Hall and other places a couple of years ago. He has made it his mission through his writing not to let us forget what went on in such places.
To the best of my knowledge the site is still owned by Dunnes Stores. If I remember correctly, they wanted to clear the whole site for redevelopment, but the Long Hall pub wouldn’t budge. Aside from being a Protected Structure, it is held in some sort of trust by the staff – left to them by the owner – which prevents them from selling it. I’m hazy on the details- anyone know any more? So Dunnes had to incorporate it into their rejigged scheme. Can’t have been easy for the pub, particularly when all around it was being excavated; pity the foundations. Don’t know whether the two redbricks nearer the corner are PSs, though.
The buildings there prior to this new one were a mixture of relatively decent and somewhat non-descript three- and four-storey nineteenth century (?) ones which Dunnes had been systematically buying up over the course of a few years and allowing to fall into dereliction- presumably they’ve had plans for the site for a number of years. And any city council would prefer a shiny new corporate hq to a row of tatty, unloved old shops… There was also a fire in the late 1990s between the Dunlop building and the corner of George’s St- two (possibly) Georgians? I have print photos at home somewhere of the corner pre-redevelopment- I’ll try to get them on here somehow.
I’m glad they kept the Dunlop one, but I’m not convinced by that top-heavy glazed area above, and though the new George’s St building admittedly has its merits, it’s yet another example of the scaling up of the city centre by stealth. I’d be a happier camper if the facade had been slightly more modelled to reflect the original plot divisions.Could the IMMA one be the Carroll’s one? I note from the Carroll’s site that some of the art has been on loan to IMMA in the past few years. Doubtful, as you’d hardly loan the feature piece from your foyer, but maybe?
Something in my head says there was one in Sandyford Ind Estate or Leopardstown- last few years, possibly an award winner, certainly a short-listed one. Bricks a dark grey. I remember Frank McDonald in the IT mentioning the brick panels, noting that the stack bond meant the brick wasn’t structural.
Also, courtesy of Google Images, I found this:
http://www.macdoh.com/html/a544-01.htmlIsn’t the brick under windows usually a soldier course rather than stack bond?
I don’t know whether we have similar legislative provisions in this country. I’ll try to find out.
Though it’s not mentioned specifically in the RPS, PS designation covers all features within the curtilage of a building, so the sculpture should be automatically included even if not mentioned by name (or as a separate record). A problem could be if it is perceived as movable rather than fixed- not clear cut in my head.
Hasn’t it been on sale for some time now? Perhaps a little overpriced?
Agreed, fergus, that no building can be held responsible for the adaptation and corruption of its features by lesser buildings, but I still think the building’s pretty poor. In writing, it seems to push all the right buttons- materials, respect for different scales and all that. But in the flesh I just think it looks lumpy and clumsy and, though the Castle Street front isn’t too bad, the whole doesn’t hang together well. Interesting that the brick was at the request of the planners- one of its redeeming features, I’d say. Yay for planners. 🙂
I’d give my right arm for the roof garden, though.Agreed also about the Ussher- I’d completely forgotten it was eligible. I use it occasionally, and it’s a joy to work in, as well as cleverly unifying the libraries with the lower ground floor lobby. A friend described it as like a wine bar with all the dark wood desks and mood lighting, and I think he has a point. Could do with better table service, though.
