Devin
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I know there’s an argument for indigenous firms remaining in the city, but I think Bargaintown should just bloody well move out to the M50 – they’ve killed diversity in the Queen Street area. Then again, this area is so neglected that maybe there wouldn’t be anybody there….
In years to come, when heavy traffic is cleared off the quays, you can see that Queen Street could be vibrant. A sort of ‘Parliament Street’ of Smithfield. The south end of the street has a pleasing urban grain. And it leads onto that beautiful bridge.
Yes it can still be refused by Bord Pleanala after the Dev Plan alteration. It’s just a case of the Bord having the balls to refuse it.
The rezoning just shows you how rife political influence still is in planning. Mansfield is incredibly well-connected (note the only photo available of him for a while was with Leinster House in the background). I’m not blowing An Taisce’s trumpet here but if Ian L. hadn’t made that Article 35 appeal, the Conference centre would be built now & would be creating a car-dependent mess, contributing to the U.S. style edge-city that Dublin is becoming. The government are just not interested in intervening in issues of major planing & development affecting the country like this. And of course the building would be mock-Palladian rubbish.
Nothing against Saggart, but it’s not the place for a National Conference Centre.
Yes, that wasteland on the quay was where thw gilroy macmahon Family Court (decided in ’98) was to be, but it looks like it’s not going ahead now.
That’s interesting. But it’s hard to tell from the before-and-after map plans of the entire scheme whether the lowest bit of the street will be widened or not because the two maps are at a slightly different scale & don’t go all the way to the Liffey & bridge. The text mentions “redesign of the dual carraigeway” but doesn’t say what that means. I know that the first phase of the scheme at the top of the street has been completed on the widened streetline.
This pic shows the view from Bridgefoot Street across the bridge into Queen Street – it would just be a matter of replacing the single storey structure on the left to full height…
….Or the planned pedestrian link on the axis of Exchequer St. into Dub Castle, with associated new public spaces on the castle side…
or the refacing of the Stephen’s Gn centre…
or the revamp of Hawkins House…
or the infill courthouse building for Upper Ormond Quay near the Four Courts…
THIS POST IS BY DIASPORA (NOT DEVIN)
What really takes the biscuit is Liffey St,
at least 50% of the DCC specially paved surface was cut up by some utility contractor(s) and is now roughly tarred over.
That could be it.
Dead right about bare poles everywhere in the city. Submitted a photographic visual clutter ‘gallery of rogues’ to them for the Development Plan review back in March.
They make reference to the need to reduce visual clutter in the city in the ‘Manager’s Report’ (the summary of submissions recieved), but no actual plans or strategies as to how to reduce and minimise the chronic pole and signage clutter in the city.
Believe it or not, the completion of the widening of Bridgefoot Street (the bit nearest the Liffey) is in the transport objectives of the new draft Development Plan 2005-11. This was begun in the early ’70s as part of the now discredited Inner Tangent scheme.
It’s pointless to widen that street now cos you would also have to widen Thomas Court, the one that runs down the side of St. Catherine’s Church, which was part of the original plan. And that’s not going to be done now cos people live in the houses.
But the main reason why it shouldn’t be widened is that it would destroy the urban context of Mellowes (Queen Street) Bridge, the oldest and most hump-backed bridge on the Liffey. Currently, the streets leading off to each side line up with the bridge. This is very rare in Dublin now. So many bridge junctions have been blasted open by street widening or ruined by bad new buildings that the Mellowes Bridge context is really worth hanging onto.
An taisce dublin are trying to get this objective removed from the new draft Development Plan.I imagine that a lot of PVC insertion in prot. strucs. in towns and villages across the country goes uncomplained-about, cos awareness is low. So the owner has ‘got away with’ putting the PVC in.
At the time a building was made a listed building or protected structure, the owner should have got a letter from the planning authority, telling them that window replacement (among other things) would need planning permission. But with Ireland being Ireland, people forget about that, or mislay the letter, or don’t agree with being told what they can and can’t do with their building.
Yes. You always think that any day now it’s going to stop and people are going to realise that the timber sash window is an essential design characteristic in Irish period buildings, but it just goes on.
The agressive marketing strategies of the PVC companies is a lot to blame. In the Yellow Pages there’s about 30 pages non stop of PVC company ads and maybe one or two pages for wooden window making or repairing. And they bombard old buildings with leaflets for PVC.
While the enforcement system is there for unauthorised window replacement in protected structures, it is usually ignored cos owners reckon they won’t be taken to court for something as “unimportant” as PVC windows.
Visual awareness is low in this country and a lot of people have PVC installed in good faith, thinking that by doing so they are improving and restoring the building.
I’ve made loads of complaints (on behalf of an taisce dublin city) about PVC and other unauthorised alterations to prot. strucs. and only a handful have ever been resolved. Complained about a prot. struc. on Fownes St. last year, told Frank McD. and he kindly put a piece in the Times for me.
I’d say in country towns there’s no hope at all of getting PVC out once it goes in.
Archer’s looks well but the steel windows haven’t been put back on the 1st floor. It’s the same glazing pattern but the material is some kind of coated metal (could it really be PVC coating??).
Incidentally, it was Ian Lumley of An Taisce who got Archer’s listed, as part of a submission to the 1998 draft Dublin City Development Plan, recommending hundreds of buildings for listing (as it was then). The submission was made under the Dublin Civic Trust, a company set up by An Taisce.
That’s sad about the Step Inn. PVC window insertion in old buildings is still happening a lot despite the strengthened architectural heritage protection afforded by the Plan. & and Dev. Act 2000 and supposed greater public awareness of heritage etc.
Is the Step Inn a Protected Structure? I don’t have the Dunlaoghaire/Rathdown Development Plan to hand to check if it is. If it’s not, there’s not much can be done about the window replacement. If it is a Protected Structure, then the PVC window insertion is an unauthorised development and a complaint can be made to DL/R Council’s Enforcement Dept. An inspection will be made by an Enforcement Officer confirming the recent PVC insertion and a notice will be served on the owner instructing him/her to make good the unauthorised development (i. e. reinstate sashes). The owner has the option to apply for retention of the development (this is what happened in the case of Hanlon’s pub, mentioned at the start of the thread). But it won’t be given for PVC windows in a Protected Structure (After being refused retention by DCC, Hanlon’s wasted 600 Euro on a first party appeal to An Bord Pleanala – making subjective arguments as to why they should be allowed to keep the PVC – but were of course refused).
The only hope for The Step Inn if it’s not a Protected Structure is that, because it’s a landmark old building in the middle of Stepaside, it will become protected sooner or later. The Council can’t then insist on immediate reinstatement of sashes, but next time the Inn applies to do other work, they can be compelled to restore the sashes by planning permission condition. Or they might even want to do it themselves! (though not the current owner by the sound of things)
The information on protection of listed buildings in most current Development Plans is obsolete now because it’s been superseded by the Protected Structure (and ACA) system of the Planning and Development Act 2000. Though the list of “Listed Buildings” in the back of Dev Plans are the ones that are now Protected Structures (listed buildings automatically became P.S.s at the time of the Act).
That Beamish building is lovely. Cork is full of surprises! The crack in the render just needs to be repaired. I wouldn’t paint it:- the unpainted rough cast render may have been the intended finish. It was often used in this type of Tudor Revival/Arts and Crafts design.
Is it a Protected Structure? If so, painting those wings might materially affect the character of the structure and so might not be permitted.
Old buildings shouldn’t necessarily look bright and shiny. Thousands of period buildings in this country have been wrecked by over-restoration. I agree that the buildings at the back do look bad – but even they have interest from an industrial architecture heritage view.
(By the way I think that glass porch has been very insensitively attached onto the handsome 19th century grain store of the Heineken building)
Yes, the 1858 foto of O’C St. was definitely taken early-ish in the morning as the sun is coming directly from the east, so it’s possible that the street was quiet.
The next foto (circa 1895) – taken from the Westmoreland St/D’Olier St corner – is also interesting because, while this view was (and is) endlessly photographed, you don’t normally see any foreground detail (John Gray (or whoever he is) statue and surrounding street furniture).
What I would love is if the plaza at the GPO could have been FLATTER. While the unity of the pavement and road surface is excellent (provided traffic is not pouring through), it still has the ‘road’-like quality of falling away at each side to an annoying degree. If they were serious about the “plaza” being a plaza, it should have been much flatter. You shouldn’t feel like you’re higher up on the median than the pavements at each side, which you do now.
But I still like it a lot and I think the work being done is great.
Originally posted by Graham Hickey
Interesting photograph of the street here from 1858 – one of the earliest photos of a street scene in the city. Must have been taken on a Sunday morning or something as the place is deserted.Only catching up on this now!
Very early photo. The reason why no people or other moving objects appear is that photography was very new in 1858 and camera film was very slow, very insensitive to light. The lens would have to be left open for a minute or more to get a proper exposure. The street was probably busy at the time, but moving things did record. The one coach that you can see near the Pillar must have been stationary during the exposure.
But the technology improved quickly and by the late 19th century camera film was much ‘quicker’ and it was possible to take a photograph in a fraction of a second, thus ‘freezing’ people or vehicles as they moved through a view.
Yes, I wonder if the dirt is the actual surface in the picture or are there stone setts or cobbles underneath?
Originally posted by StephenC
The final section, ie the northern end from Henry to Parnell I thought was Phase 3.I kind of like that bit of pebblestone landscaping around the base of the Parnell Monument. Will that be replaced as part of this phase? though I admit it’s of no great merit.
For the first 10 or 15 years after it was blown up, the Nelson Pillar site had a similar ‘pebble park’.
have a photo of itt somewhere if i can find it ill post it
Originally posted by GregF
It would be very sad if Calatrava’s bridge is not built.Don’t get me wrong, I dearly hope that it is built as well. While the design is generic, I think the bridge still somehow seems unique and right for the docklands.
And I also hope the chunky road element will not detract from the overall lightness of the design, as graham was also saying. The article above says there’s going to be four traffic lanes, two Luas lanes and cycle and pedestrian lanes, so it’s a bit worrying…
