Devin
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It’s a good question; was it right to build historic-style facades there or should a contemporary architectural approach have been taken? Would it be done now? What constituted good contemporary infill at the time (early ’90s)? If better quality materials had been used would the scheme be so reviled? Lots of ponderables….
The funny thing is, in comparison to a lot of fake Georgian before and since, a lot of attention was paid to the design of the Bachelor’s Walk scheme (window proportions, subdivision of facades, roof & chimney detail etc.). But the results are still awful; reconstituted stone used for all the “stone†detailing (the hallmark of all cheap nasty urban renewal development) and the façade as a whole looks dead and sterile compared to the genuine historic buildings that begin on the other side of the Ha’penny Bridge (Ormond Qy).
And, funniest of all, the most prominent ‘building’ in the scheme, the one at the corner with Liffey Street, is starting to get PVC Georgian windows on its top floors now!!! (If anyone has a camera to hand could they take a picture of this?) What is the planning enforcement situation here?? Is there an obligation on the owner to keep the original sash windows? Fecked if I know.
Also funny is the nice chunky wooden de Blacam & Meagher shopfront (Coffee Society) inset into the scheme’s crappy plywood traditional-style shopfront on the Liffey Street frontage.
The previous buildings at the west end of Bachelor’s Walk were very charming. Check out this ’60s view from Merchant’s Arch:
@Dubliner wrote:
Meath is covered in historical sites as the Boyne Valley was one of the first places settled in Ireland, whatever route is chosen is going to have sites that can’t be built on according to some people.
…one sentence going into another with a comma instead of a full stop…your style is oddly similar to Diaspora’s….(hmmmmmm!…….)
And a modern view of Eden Quay fron the Loop Line Bridge (taken from a crossing Dart) – the unity of scale is evident:
Yes, it does sort of do that (unintentionally). And it shouldn’t have…a monolith centrepiece building was not called for here!!
It breaks the hierarchy of scale between O’Connell Street and the Quays. The 5-storey WSC’s buildings of Lr. O’Connell Street returned onto the Quays for 9 bays each, before dropping to 4 stories – and this hierarchy was maintained in the post-1916 reconstruction…..The new thing should of course have kept the parapet height of Eden Qy., whatever about a setback storey…..Grrrr! I’m annoyed now! More erosion of Dublin’s design!!!Here’s the building that was there before the previous laughter lounge – the Corinthian Cinema. You can see that, although a flashy building, it kept the parapet:
It probably would have been better to take the approach of the recent Henry J Lyons façade which adjoins the Corn Exchange on Burgh Quay opposite. This building contrasts quite well with the Corn Exch. & red brick houses when you are on Burgh Quay itself. But although the parapet height respects the scale of the quay, it has several setback stories piled up behind, so it doesn’t work so well when seen from the other side of the river. But at least there is a modern idiom – the new yoke on Eden Quay isn’t one thing or the other….Parnell St. architecture!
The “hanging silver box” is the building adjoining the pub, which has an underpass into an alley.
I know the feeling!!! making this my last as well!
Well that’s one good thing about the Eden Qy boardwalk – it will be a good place to lounge on the hand rail & enjoy the Corn Exchange, which though north-facing gets a lot of sunshine from late afternoon onwards in spring & summer. And especially since the Georgian house on its east flank has been restored to reveal its granite-arched shopfront (which was hidden behind a single storey wall). This is a great & underrated Dublin setpiece; the massive 2-storey granite Corn Exchange with matching red brick 4-storey houses to either side, with arched shopfronts.
But a load of jerry-built rubbish was piled up behind this in the ‘90s…the argument was that the skyline of the Corn Exchange, as seen from Eden Quay, was already lost because of Hawkins House on Poolbeg St. 🙁 🙂
Yes, and even with the space taken up by the buses at the quay wall side, there’s going to be a lot of space left over for all other traffic when HGVs are removed into the Port Tunnel. Maybe it would have been better to create a broad pedestrian riverside walk for Eden Quay instead of putting another boardwalk outside the quay wall, which just adds one more piece of clutter into the view of the Custom House from the O’Connell Bridge area.
I think the poor environmental condition of Eden Quay – and it really is an awful quay to stand around on, with all the bus termini, quays traffic and anything else that has turned in from O’Connell Bridge – causes an unfairly negative impression of its architecture. All the buildings from O’C St. to Marlb. St. are rebuilds after 1916. A couple of them are quite nice, especially the Samaritans building on the Marlb. St. corner (although its Marlb. St. facade windows have been PVC’d as Graham said, the quayside facade seems to retain its originals).
Then from Marlb. St. down to Liberty Hall are mostly original Wide Sts. C.’s four-storey Georgians, though the pale yellow one at the corner (originally 3 buildings) does look about as un-Georgian as a Georgian building can possibly look, after a gutting for offices in the ‘70s. Some of the others look quite well though, with their pitched roofs, chimney stacks and faded red brick on the upper floors.
The scale of the quay does seem a bit low for its width, but it had to be four stories in order to be subsidiary to five-storey O’Connell Street.
Haven’t seen the new L. L. in person yet, but it doesn’t look great in that little image…a Morrison Hotel pastiche?
@graham dwyer wrote:
Thank you all for you comments and opinions, I have been following this thread with intrest! Although not all the facts presented by Devin are correct! Please email me to discuss!!!!!!
What facts are you referring to? As far as I am concerned I have not posted any incorrect facts. You have already engaged in public debate here about your scheme, so if you consider that facts presented relating to it are incorrect, then this is the place to raise them.
I don’t think anybody is discouraging the redevelopment of this site (including anybody in An T), but, as with redevelopment of any key city centre site, there’s only one chance to get it right.
I posted the above information mainly because of the tiresome knee-jerk reaction against An T appealing a development by certain people on the forum who, in this case, hadn’t inspected the planning application for themselves, but were making a judgement on the scheme on the basis of images posted here with the top of the scheme chopped off.
I’ve already said I’d like to see a good contemporary building here and I wish you luck with the development.
The enclosure of the GPO plaza does seem poor at south side, where it meets the area outside Easons, especially now in winter when the few trees that do form this side of it are so bare & puny looking (though admittedly their Xmas lights have given them a bit of zing!).
It’s funny – the south and north sides of the plaza are supposed to read as two sides of a four-sided enclosure of limes, with two holes in each to let the traffic through, but I think the trees here will need to fill out a good bit more before achieving this effect.
And maybe these sides could have taken a few more trees than the two in the median and & one each where they meet the east/west sides??
@kefu wrote:
He writes: ‘The government’s solution is to add an extra lane to the M50 orbital motorway and upgrade its junctions to remove traffic lights. The famous Red Cow roundabout will become a mass of concrete flyovers.’ – implies that the Red Cow roundabout is famous for a good reason and that a flyover will somehow be damaging to the environment.
He writes: ‘Ireland is one of the most car-dependent countries in the world. Irish motorists drive on average 24,000km a year, far above the UK’s average of 16,000 and even topping the US’s 19,000.’ He uses this little-used statistic because car ownership rates are still low by international standards and it doesn’t suit his argument.
He writes: ‘The numbers of people commuting by car to Dublin in the morning rush hour increased by 149% between 1991 and 2001.’ But since then – the numbers of cars entering the inner ring has actually fallen.I can sort of understand alan d refuting the contents of the Guardian article, as he is not here to see it and experience it on a daily basis, but somebody who apparently lives and travels around here every day also refuting it is surprising (?).
I think this Irish Independent article posted by anto back in July is worth a look again:
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3262
And I wouldn’t even be as pessimistic as Colm McCarthy at the end of the article!
Regarding London, it is not a compact city in the way Amsterdam or Cophenhagen are, and has some terrible sprawl in the outer parts – no thanks to Thatcher & her mindless promotion of a car-borne society in the 80s – but most of it is still a helluva lot more compact than Dublin is now.
I think the most awful thing about Ireland is the way we gone for – much moreso than the British – American values, not just in the environment but in everything – just look at that new ryan turbidy chat show…the opening & sets are straight from Letterman or Leno! I think it’s outrageous that we feel we have to do this.
The problem with architects is that they think more in terms of individual projects than the environment as a whole – as reflected in roskav’s and other posts so far – they look on shite engineer-draftsman designed stuff as funny or ironic, like the Mc Mansion bungalows, without getting particularly annoyed or feeling ‘it can’t go on like this’.
Alan if your drive in Ireland has only been from Belfast to Sligo as you have indicated before, and you think the article was just ‘polemic’, I think you need to drive from Dublin to Galway taking care to pass through Athlone. I’d like to hear what you think on this thread topic then.
@asdasd wrote:
[Dublin] is low rise sprawling. So is London, for most of it’s inhabitants. and sprawls more. And has no real center where people go every weekend.
Eh, it’s a city of 10 million people & takes up not a huge amount more space than Dublin. If you know south London, all those centres like Brixton, Streatham, Balham, Wandsworth, Thornton Heath…once you step off the High Streets, you’re into a dense network of 3-storey terraced streets – the density of much of London actually very high.
What about the west end? – their temple bar!!@asdasd wrote:
We are trying to build higher density in the center. Some of the people opposed to that are also opposed to sprawl.
There are two issues there. To quote garetace there is a need to ‘separate the issues’ (sprawl & high density). It doesn’t follow that if you are against sprawl you are pro any high density.
and he’s off again…….
Having presribed body status and having 80 to 90 per cent of its appeals overturned makes An Taisce rather un-toothless. The thing is you would need about 50 An Taisces (or An T to be 50 times bigger) to combat the level of environmental degradation and bad development in Ireland (you would also need more enviromental awareness on the part of the government, developers & the general public)
The Guardian article was all too true, but it lost impact because it just went through the issues one after another – at the end you’re left thinking ‘who would want to do anything about all of that?’ Then again, you have to consider it was written for a UK audience – we are yused to being drip fed these issues by Treacy Hogan and Frank McD, so it may be a good thing for the Brits tio hear about it this way.
Although first planned in 1927 as you say, the continuationof the Place to the river doesn’t seem to have happened til the ’60s.
I’ve seen some closer-up photos of those stone dockside warehouses – they were very nice. I’d say the curved streetscape views with the dark limestone of the warehouses and the red brick of the Georgian houses were rather good 🙂 . Still, the Beresford Place facade of Bus Aras does at least provide a Georgian-scale Portland stone-clad wall so as to maintain the the line of the Place and respect the Custom Hse & brick houses at Nos. 1-5 materials wise. I suppose that’s why it’s such a great building; it manages to do those things and still be utterly 20th century.
Regarding the continuation of Beresford Pl around to the river, I suppose it was just too irresistable from a traffic-planning point of view not to make a full semi-circle road behind the Custom House and build a new bridge over the river, thus turning the Custom Hse into a traffic island – such was the prevailing climate 🙁 .
If ever there was a case where a faithful Georgian reproduction building was justified, it’s No 5 Beresford Place. I don’t know if the Victorian-looking No 5 is a complete replacement or just a refacing of the original building, changing the window opes and ground floor arrangement, but it would certainly be worth a reconstuction to original design and detail.
It’s still a beautiful terrace despite all the negative points jimq mentions about the road in general. The recent restoration of Nos 1 & 2 certainly shows the potential. Both of their brick facades were repointed to a high standard with a fine line of white mortar. Though one slightly irksome point is that, while the new sash windows in No 1 are accurate replicas of the original 1790s sashes, the new windows in No 2 wrongly include sash horns & glazing bars which are slightly too fat. You would think that, since both buildings were having new sash windows fitted at the same time, they would be able to get the details right. But, hey that’s just for obsessives. Also some dodgy mock-Victorian gaslamps & replacement front steps were installed in No 2 – the standard of restoration wasn’t as high as that of No 1.
It’s true that Luas & its pavement-widening effect has improved amenity for the terrace.
I hadn’t intended coming back into this thread, but since the first image posted above throws a different light on the original 7-storey development, I’d like to clear up some of the rubbish that was written about An Taisce & its taking of the appeal against it early in this thread.
For example these three comments posted by the Wejcherts architect:
@graham dwyer wrote:
Dublin City Council…had been consulted all the way, there was even a presentation to An Taisce!
The “presentation†he refers to was not a pre-planning discussion as is implied, but a requested meeting after the appeal had been lodged, to try’n persuade An T to withdraw its appeal.
@graham dwyer wrote:
We should have been knocking down that brown depressing brick monstrosity by now! [if An Taisce hadn’t appealed]
Actually 3 parties appealed the scheme (listed in last post by me, above),
@graham dwyer wrote:
Believe me, Dublin City Council wrote a glowing report on the scheme
The DCC planner’s report on the scheme was a joke! It said that the City Architect considers that “having regard to the sensitive location of the development adjoining the Gaiety, a protected structure, it is acknowledged that there is a difference of scale. However because of the uniqueness of the design it is considered the two could cohabit without detrimental impact on the protected structureâ€. So screw the protected structure legislation and the amenity and overshadowing of surrounding residents and properties because the C.A. likes the “uniqueness of the designâ€? – absolutely outrageous!! And granting permission for this wouldn’t be the first blunder the C.A. has made (cue kiosks, for one).
If that report is described as “glowingâ€, how would the An Bord Pleanala planner’s report with the decision to refuse permission be described? It said:“much of the applicant’s submissions [by Wejcherts] relate to the quality of the design of the proposed developmentâ€, but the planner says “In my opinion the substantive issue in this appeal is not one of design…but rather that the height, bulk, scale and extent of the proposed development… on the restricted site…would constitute serious overdevelopment…and would be contrary to the density and plot ratio provisions of the Development Plan…and as such the proposed development would be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area…â€
As well, there are some gems of contradiction to be found quoted in the report. Like where the residents of the apartment at No 7 Chatham St in their appeal said the proposed development would present “rising blocks of blank-walled stepped buildings†to their amenity, the architects’ planning application report says “it has been assessed that a marginal reduction of access to sunlight and daylight at the rear (south facing) elevation of the dwellings is likely to arise†😀
The full report is worth a look for anyone who made comments on this thread (ref. PL29S.205325):
http://www.pleanala.ie/numeric/indexnum.html
Anyway, after being granted by DCC, the revised 5-storey proposal has just been appealed again (Ref. PL29S.209800) by two parties – the residents again, who say the scale of the development “remains overwhelming†– and by Wejcherts themselves (in conjunction with a planning firm), who are appealing against a condition in the grant that the 2nd floor projection in the façade shall be omitted (so much for An T delaying developments by appealing 🙂 ).
…and the replacement ’20s church is pretty cute, an underrated gem I think.
Regarding the photo of O’C St. in ’22, you can see that all the buildings destroyed in 1916 on that side of the street – ie. from Eden Qy. up to Cathedral St. – had already been replaced (the Dunnes Stores redevelopment on Stephen’s St./Georges St. first lodged plans in 1997 and is still not finished 🙁 ). Then everything from Cathedral St. down to Cathal Brugha St. came down in ’22 – there doesn’t seem to have been any overlap in the destruction.
Exactly – the views that Wejcherts never posted! It’s all in the file at the planning deask, ref. 2882/03.
Kefu was won over by the nice glowy low-level image posted by the Wejcherts’ architect (that’s why architects produce nice glowy images of their schemes!) and Rory W couldn’t believe why An Taisce were appealing (any clearer now Rory W?).Just to recap, the developlment in the first image was granted permisson by DCC (!) & overturned on appeal (thrree parties appealed; John Phelan, Hugh & Ester McGahon and An Taisce).
