Devin
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Had a look in Shaw’s 1850 pictorial directory – the 3-storey classical building where the Gas Co. is shown – no other info.
That side of D’Olier St. seems to be complete with full-height buildings up to the Hawkins St. junction at this time, but the building on the corner (where the 1890s D’Olier Chambers is now) looks a bit different, with round-headed windows on the gnd. & 1st floors – so it may not be by the WSCs (that might explain the quoins wrapping around the cnr. of the last red brick building if the corner building in Shaw’s was built a bit later or also set back a little).
@Graham Hickey wrote:
I never understood the designs chosen for Carlisle Building and the Ballast Office. Why depart so lightly from the rest of the streetscape? Either go the whole way and put two landmark stone buildings there, or completely maintain the streetscape right up to the corners.
In Shaw’s, the normal Westmoreland St. buildings go right up to the corner of Aston’s Quay – there’s no landmark building. According to Frederick O’Dwyer’s Lost Dublin, the Ballast Office was only given the alterations to make it into a landmark building in the 1860s.
@Diaspora wrote:
I’m afraid that as aesthetically pleasing as Dick’s figure of 8 may be it will not address fundamental issues of Irish Rail transportation, it is all the population of Ireland that we should be trying to serve here
Diaspora, could think before you post and not just bang down the first thing that comes into your head? Where does it say that the ‘figure of 8’ purports to serve the country’s or greater Dublin area’s commuting needs? (nowhere) – It is a city centre plan, designed to make it easier to get around the centre, link major tourist attractions and promote urban regeration in places that need it, like James’ Street. It also improves the public realm of the city by removing unecessary through traffic.
If the Metro plan dies, the RPA’s raison d’etre (apart from connecting the two lines they built separately) disappears.
No, there’s also the plan the chief Dublin city planner wants; extending Luas along the Thomas Street/Dame Street/Pearse Street axis to link with existing or upcoming lines at James’ Street and the Point Depot (described as ‘figure of 8’).
Niches?? I don’t know about that.
The “bricked up” windows may have been like that from the beginning right enough (“fake”) – implication was just as important as reality in Georgian architecture 🙂
@Graham Hickey wrote:
As this topic is raised again, I think I have an explanation for the red brick aliens on the east side of D’Olier St.
I have engraving from 1820 of the street and it would appear that that side was never properly developed, although it may have been subsequent to the pic.
In the very centre of the terrace, on the site of the Gas Building, is a large white building, probably stone and 5 bays wide. The building is the same height as the terrace but is only 3 storeys in total. The terrace continues down a bit more towards Pearse St, with the regular WSC buildings of T & C Martin, now D’Olier House, but stops before the site of the current red-bricked buildings and D’Olier Chambers, where there’s a small two storey building with a pitched roof covering pretty much all these sites.That’s interesting. So what we think of as the complete and unified great D’Olier/Westmoreland Street scheme of circa 1800 may not have been so complete & unified after all!!
You can just about see that three-storey building you are talking about Graham on the site of the gas building in this 1880s photo posted before. Wonder what it was? – I’m going to have at look a Shaw’s Dublin Directory, 1850 this evening (which shows drawn elevations of all the central streets in Dublin) to see what it shows:https://archiseek.com/content/attachment.php?attachmentid=486
It’s also interesting that The Carlisle Building on the Burgh Quay cnr (definitely by WSCs) was four storeys and not five.
With regard to the ‘50s (or earlier) building, I think some of the positive comments made about it before were that it would’ve looked better when it had it’s original steel windows. While I agree would’ve looked better with orig. windows, I don’t think it’s a great example of its type and I think its relation to the bank is quite poor – that flippant ’50p’ corner should never have been done in this important location!
Do you get an edit note on a thread title if you go back and edit it? (to put the ‘y’ into the ‘psychological’ of this one). It’s kind of irritating looking at this misspelling in the thread lists :rolleyes:
On more a serious note, I’ve noticed a rake of new Centras have opened around town in recent months – Westland Row, College Green, Wicklow Street, Merrion Row, Stephen’s Green…, and the volume of store lighting they’re using is even greater than ever before for convenience stores. They are nearly blinding when you walk in….and the light pollution that’s spilling onto the street…. I think the DCC planners are falling down here in their controlling of light volumes used, and especially as some or most of the shops would be in Protected Structures or located in Conservation Areas, where lighting should be in restrained and harmony with the character of the building/area. I think I will write a letter to DCC about it.
You can only presume that the shopfronts on Westmoreland Street were the same as the D’Olier Street ones, as that is the way they appear on original WSC’s drawings and in the Brocas print of 1820. But even in early photos they seem to be mostly gone – replaced by timber late-19th century-type ones, or replaced along with the entire building – as in most of block between the BOI portico and Fleet Street, as seen in the 1920s photo below. When you look at the amount of Victorian infill on this block, it’s surprising how much of the overall WSC’s D’Olier/Westm Sts. scheme survived up to the ‘60s/’70s..…then John Byrne et al got to work 🙁
But you can see an original doric-pilastered granite shopfront on the building adjoining the portico in the photo. It’s a pity this building and the other original beside it were demolished & replaced in the ‘50s – they looked magnificent beside the bank….the proportions…..the sombriety……
Somebody recently was praising the ‘50s building that’s there now, but I think it’s terrible….a slap in the face to what was there.We Combray Limited are applying to the above for permission to demolish 3no. existing buildings being nos. 30, 31 & 32 at Templeshannon, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford (no. 30 being a protected structure) and erect a 6 storey extension to the side of the existing hotel consisting of 36no. bedrooms, bar, restaurant and take away with ancillary areas…..Signed on behalf of the applicant by Arthur O’Leary, Architect and Planning Consultant, 81 Main Street, Gorey, Co. Wexford.
The building is listed separately in the Enniscorthy Town Plan (& it’s Enniscorthy Town Council who process the planning application).
Diaspora, as is sadly the case with so many important (& not so important) planning applications outside the big cities, the ‘architect’ does not have a professional qualification, so no complaint to the RIAI can be made (….didn’t the RIAI recently get something passed to deal with this problem of non-architects calling themselves architects?). Regarding the clear rationale for refusal, the ploy is to have the building de-listed at a later date.
The application is an example of what happens so much in Ireland – genuine heritage buildings/features being destroyed & replaced by ‘heritage style’ buildings (see hotel below) or features – & fuelled by McCreevy’s urban renewal tax-incentives.
I suppose it goes back to what yee haw was saying recently about the attitude to heritage here, & that in Scotland/UK those things are held in far higher esteem. While the Enniscorthy building is a protected strucure, a building of this rarity and value would have been snapped up by a National Trust (like the one in Strabane, which is featured in Sean Rothery’s ‘The Buildings of Ireland’) had An T or some other body been given the relevant powers by government before. But instead there’s a plan to knock it & build a gombeen hotel extension which probably has local political backing.
An T will make an objection – if anybody else feels strongly enough, please use your democratic right and make an objection. It was lodged on the 16th of Dec., so, with the added time for the holidays, there’s still a bit to go in the 5-week period.
Existing elevation:
I saw an objective somewhere in the draft City Development Plan ’04 that the council would seek to return the amalgamated buildings at 10-16 D’Olier St to individual shop units…
There is also the factor of time – i.e. – the difference in thinking between 1993, when the Bachelor’s Walk plans were being made up and now, 2005. The idea of modern, contrasting structures in a historic context is much more widely accepted now than it was then.
The accepted approach now is achieve rich contrast between new and old. Materials like glass and steel are used to add sympathetically to historic surroundings.
Though I have to say there’s still oodles of engineer-designed excrement being built everywhere in Ireland. Tax relief deadlines for development just expired there before Christmas and you’d wanna see some of the stuff that’s after coming in here to An Taisce – it’s frightening…hotels, tourist accommodation, nursing homes, multi-storey carparks, equestrian centres – all of it bulky oversized, mansard roof PVC design-free rubbish, and most of it will get built!
TRANSPORT ‘LOCK-IN’:
Ikea opening near the M50 reminds me of an economists term called “lock-in”. The term would be used to explain the extraordinary success of Microsoft; – the more people that installed the system, the more useful it became. The system operator can then “lock-in” the use of their product by aquiring a critical mass of users before any competition.
In Ireland, road transportation is locked in because of the huge programme of road building, the surge in car ownership and the antiqated and underfunded public transport system. In the face of this, individuals will chose to rely on their cars, housing will be built around the road system and large shops – like Ikea – will be built on by-passes with large car parks. Employment will be sited on the assumption that employees drive their own cars. Powerful lobbies like the Automobile Association will be created.
ehhhhhhhh, right Rory.
Anyone got a pic of the bit of Zoe scheme towards the Ha’penny bridge end, the more ‘celebrated’ bit?
The Zoe scheme kept the jagged streetline of the previous buildings as well, such was the effort to be historical.
Yeah, it was meant be a soft glow, but it’s a harsh light in reality. And there was never any explanation (that I read or heard anyway) of why they couldn’t make it like it was in the images. Does anyone know? I think this came up before way back in the thread – dunno what page.
Also irritating (and raised before) is the strip of light around the middle. Is it permanent? It looks silly. If there’s a danger of something missing the light at the top but crashing into the middle, why can’t they light it gently from the roofs of the buildings instead?
Admittedly, what was there before wasn’t that great Stephen, but it had a sort of higgledy-piggledy charm. I believe the Quays were very lively back then, with loads of book and antique shops, and of course the traffic was nothing like it is today.
Regarding definition of pastiche, I definitely think of pastiche as building in a historical style. I suppose also inherent in the word is that it’s done cheaply, as Frank T. noted. It’s actually fairly rare that previous buildings are replicated (well or badly) apart from the squares etc.
Have you also noticed that new pub on Liffey Street which has done exactly the same thing as Thing Mote – ripped off the paint scheme of Kehoe’s on South Anne St.?
@Diaspora wrote:
To be honest devin I think most people here read the posts and don’t indulge in syntax examination they simply post or don’t if they have nothing relevant to say.
I don’t normally care or particularly notice what syntax people use, but I happen to think Ruadhan MacEoin does good work to challenge the massively overscaled roads programme & government bias in favour of roads over public transport, and if you’re using multiple identities – Diaspora/Dubliner/PVC King (see also the “homepages†for those names) – to support yourself in threads, I think it makes a sham of the forum.
Sorry Graham, I know I didn’t answer the question and I talked about materials and quality when you asked us not to, but, in short, I don’t think there is a yes or no to it. On streets/squares where there are consistent terraces, yes, accurate replica should be used, but on somwhere like the Quays I think it will always be subjective…
