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After looking around I`ve found, in my option, Dublins ugliest buildings in random order:
ESB on Fitzwilliam Street(hopefully they sell it)
ESB on Westmoreland street
Hawkins house (to be revamped thank God)
Irish Life centre
Dun Laoghaire Shopping centre
That new office block at Liffey valley overlooking the N4
That row on mount street
Many office blocks in D4
to be contined……meanwhile i want to hear your comments. ThanksJust took a look at the images of the proposed development and if thats all you people are worried about then you really do have too much time on your hands. What the hell is the big fuss? OK, its no architectural marvel, but its not half as bad as some scaremongers are making out.
Actually I’m beginning to hope this gets the go-ahead, as I’m being drawn to the conclusion that some conservationists may well be full of crap, as well as their own self-importance. Although, knowing An Bord Pleanala, no doubt they’ll get their own whinging way.
“It would be such a crying shame to (have) a monstrosity of an office block erected in such a historicaly significent site.”
I thought they were proposing to build it on a site across the road. Are they actually going to demolish Kilmainham jail and build on top of it! Come off it, they’re building on an old chocolate factory, what’s historically significant about that? Maybe we should never build anything anywhere near anything thats even remotely old, would that suit you?
Don’t know what the proposed building for the site looks like, but to rule it out purely on the basis of being near a historical site is just stupid.
Well, only marginally so.
It just seems such a shame as it’s such an amazing site that it’s just wasted on this mediocre, bulky thing…True, it was pretty dreadful before but what’s there now isn’t really that much better unfortunately.
I thought it was interesting to see some of the members of the Irish Georgian Society nod in agreement when he was praising the buildings of Wright, Le Corb, etc. and Gas Building, Bus Station and so on.
There is a lot of frustration in Cork at the moment at the pace of development , and it is not due to a lack of demand. The hotel/retail development at cornmarket Street turned down by BP was a major blow to a part of the city in dire need of investment. Similarly, on Carrols Quay, another office/residential development. A lot of concern within City Hall I would imagine, about this development inertia. There are a lot of projects ‘about to happen’ at the moment, you just feel that one or two will set the ball rolling. The Cork Docklands Plan announced recently, could be a catalyst in this regard. Produced by Urban Initiatives, it is an excellent plan, which i think has been passed by the Council, for an area which has excellent potential. Very Strong on Urban Design, Transport and Ownership issues. Otherwise, the Patrick Street redevelopment (by Beth Gali) is delayed, because the Corp. await on funding from sales of their lands in Mahon, which in turn awaits on the decision of BP relating to the mixed development on that land. Not really a good situation to be in. Plans to redevelop Train Station significantly as part of Docklands Project, as well as relocation of bus station. Cork at the moment has a lot of potential, and should be taking advantage of its second city status. It may lose out to other cities and to its suburbs, as it has done. Also, European City of Culture may effect some changes. We hope.
[This message has been edited by bunch (edited 13 March 2002).]
I’m not an architect either, but I have an interest in it. I don’t know of any particular place where details can be got, but here’s a couple of links for different developments I found myself:
For the John Rogersons quay development:
http://www.oms.ie/projects/projects.htmAnd for the South Bank Road development (don’t know if this is happening or not):
http://www.neills.de/06-south-ger.htmThe last one is in German, but it came up on a simple search on Yahoo. Since I speak a little German I can tell you it doesn’t say anything all that interesting about it.
Very little. At the moment it seems that every proposed development is objected too and subsequently turned down by An Bord Pleanala. People are beginning to get very frustrated with the appeals board.
There was a plan for a 300 room hotel in the city centre that the city council painstakingly negotiated details of with the developers for months which was unceremoniously rejected by An BP. If you are in Cork the lack of cranes on the skyline is painfully obvious, literally nothing is being built in the city centre.
The only place anything has been built lately is UCC, with several new buildings, including a new sports centre and student centre. There’s a couple of proposals for office blocks on the quayside on derelict sites, but no doubt An BP will find some fault with these too, and decide that the city needs derelict sites far more than it needs office space.
The 96m tower on Rogersons Quay recently got the go-ahead from An Bord Pleanala. Even if Dunloe can’t come up with the money to develop it themselves, I believe your man who owns Zoe Developments is very keen on the site and might try to acquire the entire Dunloe company just to get his hands on it.
Hopefully the Tara Street building will go ahead too. There’s also provision for a 100m building behind the Point in the Docklands development plan, although I think that whole plan is a waste of valuable space down there (look at the crap they put in the IFSC extension), being far too conservative in nature.
As far as the rest of the country goes, County Hall in Cork is the country’s tallest building (due to be renovated shortly). The new 17 storey Clarion hotel in Limerick is the third tallest now. Thats about all I can think of.
Well LOB, it was really more of an add-on to my initial post but I take your point.
If you’re adamant enough to actually research it, you must be right.No, it’s not really, Minima was there before Meteor and they went the same way sadly.
The Opticians have been there for quite a while though.
It would seem more suited to an office or restaurant / cafe building in a similar vein to those around it on Merrion Row.
Ballymore properties currently own most of the building and added another storey on top last year. It’s still pretty horrendous looking though, horribly proportioned.Another thing, the archway over the cemetery says ‘Hughenot Cemetery’ – a historical spelling mistake. I notice that whoever started the topic also misspelled it. It’s Huguenot. 🙂
Last year in Bolton St there was a thesis done on this very site. A French cultural centre (in reference to the French Huguenot cemetery, presumably) The building replaced the awful thing that’s there now, which deserved some credit in itself.
The scheme had a sunken cafe along the whole length of the cemetery; it was a beautiful image. It’s an absolutely sublime and often overlooked little cemetery.
I think there were four Georgian houses on the site before and apparently it’s haunted as they disturbed the graveyard when re-cladding it the last time. Donal McNally’s on the ground floor had to get an exorcist in as the glasses kept jumping off the shelves and a lady in 17th century dress is often seen wandering thorough the basement car park at night. Fascinating stuff….As far as Eircom League grounds go, Shelbournes ground, Tolka Park, is probably the biggest – about 10k all-seated, but getting a bit old. Dalymount has had a new stand built and seats put on the old terraces, making it about a 6 or 7k ground, excluding standing.
Longfords ground is actually one of the best in the league. Its about 6k all seater, recently rebuilt and a benchmark for all other regional grounds. Turners Cross in Cork has about the same number of seats but is very constrained development wise by houses all around. None of the rest are really worth talking about as yet.
For all ye who are just interested in english football, the league here is improving, and so what if its not a great standard – if you like football you should support your local team anyway, as well as your english team. If you don’t like football disregard all that.
i think that the public at large are often wary of the terms ‘high rise’ and ‘high density’ because they automatically presume congestion, poor development standards, overcrowding and unsightly building forms. Ask any Dub about their opinions on high rise and they will almost certainly mention Ballymun or St. Michaels. (which are not even high density schemes). It will be important, in the proper development of Dublin and other Irish cities to get the message across that higher densities in cities are essential for sustainable urban development, and that with good design, they may offer very pleasant living/working environments. For example, the particular problems with Ballymun, for example, are not simply due to the fact that they are medium-high rise, even though these are often the quoted reasons. Layout, location, unit design,accessibility, public transport provision, community facilities, open space, social mix, tenure, maintenance and management have more to do with the problems of Ballymun, rather than height or density. Pressure groups probably do have disproportionate influence, however, they often have public support. I believe that people who maintain they have a right to live their lives in low-density suburban environments at city edges on large land plots, who complain about traffic and poor public transport need to have the irony of this situation explained to them. eg the reason it is, and will be, so difficult to serve the public transport needs of Dublin, is largely due to the existence of these sprawling, low density suburbs for miles outside the city (and county). I dont mean to be condescending here but i do believe that the public need to be convinced that their choices have an impact on the services thay end up with, and that land uses and transport systems are interdependent.
Whatever happens with this Euro 2008 bid and Croke Park, I think a new stadium will have to be built anyway. I just can’t see the FAI and particularly the IRFU playing their fixtures long-term in a GAA ground. Why would they want to pay rent to the GAA which would then be used to take players away from their respective sports at grass-roots level and towards the GAA?
The IRFU own their own stadium (crap and all as it is), there’s no way they’d want to become tenants of one of their major rivals. In all this furore over Croke Park and Stadium Ireland, nobody seems to have asked either of these associations what they’d loke to do.
By the way, I don’t think an Ireland/Scotland bid would win the championships anyway, purely because 5 of the eight stadia are in just two cities, which would cause enormous crowd control/hooliganism problems.
