Devin
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I took this picture of no. 6 Upr. Ormond Quay (the late-17th cen. house with later brickwork) in 2000. You can see one bay of the Ormond Hotel on the left. You can’t see them very well, but those windows are the 1-over-1 paned timber sashes, before the silly PVC insertion of 2002. You can also see that the hotel had a tasteful paint job, before the brash bright painting of now.
Who was to know things were soon to take a turn for the worst – first the PVC windows & brash painting and now the demolition order and bad replacement building? Like people have already said, that stretch of quayfront is relatively good & the Ormond is sited in the middle of a decent terrace of old stock. Since ‘Sin E’ pub was restored, including the replacement of its PVC windows with nice timber sashes, there is no PVC (other than the Ormond) on that entire block between Capel Street and Arran Street (see photos posted by Graham earlier), which is unusual for an area outside the Georgian squares. The Ormond should have been restored! – with a discreet extra floor if necessary.
Bad decision DCC! Bad decision ABP!
If anyone wants to see the file at DCC planning desk, the Ref. no. is 2342/03. Copies of the appeals & ABP decision should be in the file also.
Originally posted by J. Seerski
A point to note – surely it is not unreasonable to believe that parts of the Ormond predate 1700 – As Ormond Quay was developed during the 1670s-90s? As far as I am aware, a building that can be proved to pre-date 1700 is declared a National Monument – therefore cannot be demolished.
To my knowledge, the Ormond Hotel is a facade retention of 1902; the facades of 5 Georgian buildings were retained & amalgamated for the hotel – see attached pre-1902 picture below – I’ve marked the extent of the current hotel facade. The 3-bay facade at the end may have been rebuilt, as the window levels are different, but I’m fairly sure the four 4-bay ones make up the current hotel facade.
From the picture, these buildings appear to be typical late-18th or early-19th century brick quay houses, like no. 6 Upr. Ormond Qy. which is next door on the east, which you are probably aware is a late-17th cen. house with a 19th cen. brick re-facing. So, right enough, the buildings in the picture may have been much earlier houses with later brick re-facing (cos early brick was very soft & crumbled away etc.). But all that would be left now that is possibly of late-17th cen. date is the core brickwork of the facades behind the outer brick face, which of course was plastered over in turn for the 1902 hotel conversion.
Even though they were demolishing 5 earlier houses, the hotel builders made sure that the facade looked good, with its window architraves & string courses, & was in scale with the rest of the quay as Punchbowl referred to earlier.
Actually, I’ve seen a picture of Upr. Ormond Qy. from roundabout the 1950s – I couldn’t lay my hands on it now – and the hotel has a scroll-y stucco decoration in the centre of the parapet and I think small urns at the extremities – it looked even better! I wish I could think of where it was I saw that photo.
Originally posted by J. Seerski
It is indeed a fitting example of how expendible PVC windows are in this case. They were only installed in 2002 so they were a huge waste of money – pure short-termism (if there is such a word). Can one speculate that if the originals were intact that this may have hampered the planning application to demolish??!
Interesting point J. Seerski – maybe the inverse psychology was applied of having the PVC installed to devalue the building prior to a demolition app.
In case anyone is wondering An Taisce did appeal the demolition. I think there were 3 appeals against its demolition altogether. The An Bord Pleanala inspector agreed that it shouldn’t be demolished because of its contribution to the Quays, but the Bord itself overturned the recommendations of the inspector.
Forgot to mention that Architectural Conservation Areas also protect against demolition of older buildings, so had the Quays been an ACA there would have been a stronger argument for maintaining the Ormond (there’s only one ACA in Dublin so far – the O’Connell St. IAP Area).
The only hope is that if the owners decide not to go ahead with that horrific new building!
The installation of the plastic Georgian windows in the current Ormond Hotel in 2002 highlighted the weakness of the ‘Conservation Area’ designations in the current City Development Plan. They are just an objective for the protection of the character of historic areas – there’s no legislative power like there is with Protected Structures or Architectural Conservation Areas.
An Tais. made a complaint to the Council when the windows were installed but nothing could be done. Nice single-pane sashes dating from the 1902 hotel conversion were removed ‘n all.
The Quays need to be designated an Architectural Conservation Area, as well as several other streets like Capel Street, Thomas Street, Pearse Street and probably Grafton Street, where there’re a lot of nice old buildings but not all would be deserving of Prot. Struc. status; The streetscape and external features of the buildings would then have protection.
I heard through the pipeline that DCC are trying to get IE to do a ‘site swap’ for the Loop Line advertising hoardings so they won’t lose valuable revenue (that the government should be giving them but give to roads instead!) if they’re removed. And painting the bridge pale grey is mooted.
PVC King, you are undermining individuals who come to this forum in earnest for advice and information on built environment issues.
PVC King, I think you need to take the issue of PVC a bit more seriously. The tongue in cheek approach is not really working and is not contributing to the discussion topic.
All the schmuck politicians lined up on the panel saying they think rules for one off housing need to be relaxed.
Regardless of how they actually feel, all politicians know the popular thing to do is speak in favour of one off housing. It’s pathetic!
There must be several hundred farmhouses and cottages in various states of dereliction in every county in Ireland. If there was a really good grant scheme here for restoring them & bringing them back from the brink it would take off some of the pressure for new one-offs, which mostly look horrible in the landscape (i think).
An organisation called ‘Leader’ used to give grants for restoring old farmhouses. Do a search on them. Dunno what they were like on states of dereliction or making sure the buildings were restored in a historically correct way.
All the local authorities have grant schemes for works to protected structures to be administered by the Conservation Officer, but they usually have trouble giving away all their annual grant allocation cos of lack of resources to properly adminster it. Some countys don’t even have a Conservation Officer. If more resources were allocated, this scheme could be extended to derelict farmhouses & buildings of vernacular interest.
At least if the grant comes from the local authority you know the work will be done according to Best Conservation Practice (cos it will be part of the conditions of the grant) – so no plastic windows, no shiny fibre-cement roof slates, no heavy raised pointing to stonework.
Doubtless lots were taken, but in what condition now? Look how badly the Fr. Browne black & white collection deteriorated for want of proper storage. And colour goes off even quicker; dyes fade, film begins to eat itself etc.
Ha, ha! I know just what you mean – everybody always seems so industrious & busy going about their business in those old photos & newsreel clips of Dublin.
I’d say there are very few pre-World War 2 colour photos of the city centre. There were a couple of early colour photographic processes such as the one Ros mentioned – Autochrome. But the U.S. introduction of Kodachrome in the late ’30s was the breakthrough in terms of sheer lifelike image quality. But because of the inertia effect that Ireland underwent in everything back then, that probably didn’t even arrive here until several years after WW 2 (the “Emergency” here).
Still, I’d love to know exactly what exists in terms of early Irish colour photography.
Think that terrace is a 1950s rebuild, with some original stone doorcases reused. The window cills, railing plinths & other doorcases are in cast concrete though.
Know what you mean about the grim quality.
Audience were rapt for well over an hour.
Top restaurant critic she may be, but Helen Lucy Bourke came across as your average residents association psycho, totally out of tune with concepts of the European city & urbanism (though her qualms may have been valid in another circumstance – I gather she was referring to shitty ’90s Zoe-type developments in her area – what can we do about that now?)
Saw you with your book, telemach – I was on the platform to your left.
Thought the point he made about the “interconnector” going through the south underbelly of the city & not adding any animation to the street was good, & the desireability of an extended on-street tram network for the city centre.
As far as I know, those two French women who photographed the west of Ireland in colour in 1913 passed through Dublin also but, unfortunately for us, did not take any pictures there.
If they had, we might have had some pictures of O’Connell Street prior to the 1916 destruction.
It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? – a colour record of the red brick Georgians running down to the GPO & Pillar. Some Victorian infill had already taken place of course, especially on the Clery’s stretch, but it was still a predominantly Georgian brick streetscape.
