deliriousbeat_0

Jesus there’s a lot of whingers on this site. The building is flawed, certainly -almost all architecture is (I would say, particularly here in the very strange phenomenon of the contemporary Irish construction industry)- but it is in no way the monster that Mr. McDonald and others would have your average reader believe.

If you can forgive DCC’s approval of the garish nighttime lighting, this building clearly attempts to be respectful to its context in a way that very little new city centre “architecture” does and moreover adds reasonably good quality public space to Dame St.; public space that is in such preposterously short supply that most often when people go out for lunch they have the pleasure of deciding between a) fighting with tourists for a small patch of the Green (for a few weeks of the year when weather permits), or b) paying at 20pc net mark-up for the privilege of eating in.

Perhaps this is why Dubliners find the space so alien; they don’t know what to make of their newfound civic freedom. Perhaps like previous posters, they would rather sub-let it to the homeless and disenfranchised and then complain about its use!

If Frank McDonald wants to have a chat about detested additions to Dublin I can give him a very long and much more worthy list.

Public space makes a city better, period.