GrahamH
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Or is there – do we tend to read too much into these things, and the large hands are just for dramatic emphasis on the whole ‘rising up’ theme?
As for the hoardings, I felt decidedly queasy at the idea of pieces of the state’s heritage being plastered with advertising slogans, but it seems from Medialive that a slightly more reticent scheme featuring just a narrow banner at the top of the hoardings, covering just 10% of the surface area is to be used..
Something inventive should still be come up with to let the public know, or at least guess at what’s going on – something like BT’s post fire/water damage scheme where they proclaimed ‘we let nothing dampen our spirits’ and that something even better awaits us etc…
A quirky quip relating the restoration of each monument to the history of the commemorated person would be good, rather than just lazily pasting advertising onto blue boards…Regarding that piece of pastiche on O’Connell St – admittedly it’s not exactly in a location that would ring in most peoples’ minds as being on O’Cll St, or at best wouldn’t be the first place you’d think of, but it is this – the AIB building, former Provincial Bank branch, and the very last building on Upper O’Cll St. Built of granite, with a Portland stone faced ground floor and dressings, it was probably built around 1925 and features a very fine cornice and magnificent Edwardian-style sash windows. The interior has to be one of the most remarkable on the street.
Still haven’t quite worked out what’s going on here though, but very clearly you can see that there are 3 different segments to this building. And here’s a photograph taken during the 1965 St. Patrick’s Day Parade which confirms that the 3 southernmost bays of the current building most certainly are pastiche as there’s a fine late Victorian building in their place!
However what I don’t get is that the central two bays also appear to be false, given the join evident and that the stone has a rather new appearance. Indeed if anything the false southern 3-bay section matches the original northern section perfectly, while it’s the central part that looks like the replica!
And what of this quote from The Destruction of Dublin – always wondered about these two buildings:
“…Parnell’s fine monument is insulted by a pair of new buildings which are the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of mediocrity. One is the work of Seán Coen, a Galway building contractor, who managed to squeeze a shop and four floors of offices out of his squalid little building, not to mention a penthouse flat, which comes complete with aluminium roller shutters.
The building next door, developed by Liam Lonergan of Club Travel, is a very poor imitation of a fine new office block in Dawson Street and its most notable feature is the use of projecting box windows in screaming day-glo green.â€Were these on the AIB site? Or is the little building refered to the small one that used to be on the Frazer’s site across the road, built of that late-70s orangey coloured brick? Certainly it was squalid 🙂
The statue was moved to its current position in 1929.
Great sweeping shot of Larkin outside Clery’s during the Parade coverage – including his hands 🙂
O’Connell’s cap of bird droppings also made an unsavoury (but funny) close-up appearance, as did the perfectly timed newly unveiled St George’s (Ronan Collins didn’t know what it was :)). Also the clocks of O’Cll St were featured, including Clery’s where it was rightly pointed out how slow it always is.Parnell’s monument is the finest I think, so iconic – even if it’s not on O’Cll St…
Yes this is good news – as is the timeframe of only 3 months. One would wonder if this includes O’Connell Monument….? – which people were clambering over on Patrick’s Day. Indeed one eejit quite impressively managed to get as high as Dan’s feet, somehow managing to climb up the broad expanse of the classical frieze barrel underneath :). How the heck he got down again I do not know…
Smith O’Brien is particularly grimey at the moment, moreso than the others for some reason, whatever about the condition of the stonework and structural issues.
What an image indeed – never knew there was such imposing Georgian development so far west, although it makes sense now when you consider the Blue Coat next door. What a crying shame it was swept away, esp considering how regular the terraces were – look at all those chimneys marching along on the left 🙁 (even if they’re probably Victorian :))
And when you consider the general mess that’s there today…The dome of the Blue Coat is great – it’s so obvious it was never intended for the building, and it looks even stranger at the moment because panels of it have just been re-coppered as part of the building’s restoration project.
As for the Hardwicke St flats, yes the PVC is awful, and is even worse on the grand Mercer St flats as another example. It’s such a pity to see them all ruined this way. By contrast, the Iveagh Trust restores most if not all of its many thousands of original sashes at its various locations, even as far back as the mid-90s when the Corpo were taking them out.
Just on these vistas in Dublin though – despite how quaint and charming and all the rest of it that these places are – you’d really wonder at the inability of developers to properly lay out their lands so they’d actually work visually.
I mean Hardwicke St isn’t alligned with St George’s, the Rotunda isn’t alligned with O’Connell St, from what I can make out from that image above, the Blue Coat School wasn’t correctly positioned with Blackhall St…it’s surprising it was even bothered to put City Hall head-on with Parliament/Capel St!
The Pepper Cannister on Mount St is about the only Georgian vista that works, and it’s because it’s the only one that it’s so hackneyed at this stage.Of course there was difficulty in acquiring neighbouring lands and some older roads were laid out before others etc, but it’s just frustrating to see so many lost opportunities still niggling around 200 years later.
@garethace wrote:
the austerity, plainess and understatement is carefully aimed to mask the actual intent – to bring in the real dollars.
But of course this is the case; this has always been the case – going back to the mid-19th century if not a lot further. Okay the image stakes have been getting higher and higher in recent times, with an accompanying detachment from the outside world, but I suppose key to all of this is how much of it you choose to accept or ignore.
It’s up to the individual whether to support these places or not, or how much of the ‘dream’ you wish to enter into; whether you go the whole way or just stay at the margins looking in at everyone else, or just occassionally ‘indulge’ in the experience.
A lot is made of shopping malls and consumerism and how unhappy we supposedly all are – at the end of the day it’s up to yourself, the individual. Fashion palaces for 15-34 females most certainly do not cater for society as a whole. You have the choice to ignore them.It’s the resulting reduction in choice outside of these places that is the real concern, rather than the image etc generated by them.
At least the one good thing Dundrum has brought is the pulling of Luas users down the delightful mainstreet – it’s worth the trip just for that 🙂
@kefu wrote:
His 1991 report on the church found that the cornice and frieze of its Greek-style portico were also affected by spalling stonework due to the expansion of ferrous metal clamps.
You’d wonder what state the stonework is in now, 14 years on.
That metal clamp problem is a nasty one – this job will probably take a long long time if the steeple has to be pratically rebuilt. In the case of the Custom House, I wonder if each block had to be removed individually to access the deficient clamps or if there was another way of doing it?Innocent times 🙂
TLM, the trapdoor could well be for the Luas – indeed the utilitarian nature of the interior would suggest so…
As for the pastiche, no to all, esp Dr Quirkey’s 🙂
Yes McDonald’s lower floors are as false as a cardboard cut-out, and the brickwork is particularly nasty but it’s not it. Also Burger King, despite it’s dubious pink paint, has been with us since around 1920.
This is actually a full blown four-storey building extending from ground to parapet, and has every intention of fooling you into thinking it’s an old building.To give a clue – it used to be an individual building, but is now part of another….
Wasn’t this the thread where a transfer of hits from The Spike of something happened by mistake?
Yes, that number of arrests is crazy, esp 252 just for Dublin. On the radio a Garda spokesperson siad it was 45 last year, another said 70 – but either way 252 knocks them off the scale. Unless the Garda were being less lenient this year which could have increased the number substantially.
As for the Luas sub-station Alek Smart, it’s not finished yet…
You must despair if you’re a CC cleaner – then again you must take some comfort from the fact that like that quip about undertakers, in Ireland you’ll never be out of a job clearing up after people :rolleyes:
Interested to note that for all the concern the anti-war protesters have for others, they leave enough crap around on the plaza after every gathering for the CC to clean up; whether they pay that fee or not is irrelevant.Just on something I came across quite recently having being suspicious for ages about it – there’s quite a significant piece of pastiche on O’Connell St (no not the GPO :)) that was carried out in comparitively recent times.
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to where/what it is?(it’s nothing exciting like Clery’s being rebuilt in 1978 or something, but interesting nonetheless :))
The original setting must have been something else – although the Georgians seemed to have come a lot closer to the church than the present day crescent.
Here’s the last houses on the street – quite modest merchant housing; they’re even nicer on the opposite side and all could do with restoration. At least some efforts have been made to improve the area with PVC :rolleyes:
:It’d be so funny to be innocently coming along and notice half a church emerging from one of the most reviled piles in the city 🙂
Was only just thinking of those signs yesterday – why isn’t the information on the Reflecting the City site up on these signs?!
So much for keeping the public updated – this information should be on the signs on the median and on the hoarding that surrounds the street storage area outside the Gresham.There used to be one of these displays outside the Sony Centre median section that was removed for the works to take place – why hasn’t this been re-erected and updated on the barren wasteland of the Upper Median? Some info in the GPO wouldn’t go amiss either – indeed consultation with An Post should be carried out for a small display of what is proposed, as well as the basic historical information contained in the IAP – an O’Connell Street through the ages display. This could be located in the main foyer of the GPO in place of the stacks of crap so often piled up behind its windows.
It has to be one of the craziest stories I ever heard when reading that elements of a classical church still remained cloaked under those concrete walls. Even if they’re only fragments – mad! Still don’t believe it!
How anyone, anyone, in any frame of mind could have destroyed that in favour of what went up…
Architecturally the centre does integrate with the village – but certainly yes, by their nature such centres are inward looking in their operations. This is usually partially alleviated with stores/services facing out into the surrounding area, but it seems this was not possible at Dundrum given the nature of the site.
I think the public square works quite well, if not perhaps too small – and the glass fronted buildings facing the centre are another reasonabe concession.
The access to the centre from the village and the boardwalky nature of the pool area I think are a bit gimmicky and cluttered, and could be made a more permanent looking in a way that connects better with the area.In the interior, the way Tesco spans across a whole floor in such an exposed fashion in the atrium is awful, but by and large I thought the malls were well-proportioned and very well finished.
Agreed regarding the general scheme feeling somewhat disjointed though; it doesn’t quite work together – particularly the top floor with that curved mall and glazed roof, it feels like an afterthought.It looks like they might be going down pretty shortly considering the works underway on the lower median. There’s reason now why this one at least cannot proceed. And on that trapdoor – the kiosk may still be going down on top as the lid doesn’t look like it can accommodate paving slabs….
As for O’Cll St being filthy today – wouldn’t mind that given the parade crowds – not that that in any way excuses the fact that so many thousands of people tossed their rubbish on the ground for someone else to clean up.
Fascinating!:
And St George’s, as AT’s site also points out is based on St-Martin-in-the-Fields in London:
…which in turn is based on many of Wren’s earlier parish churches. Again which were influenced by…..okay we’ll stop there 🙂
St George’s also has the honour of starring in what’s widely regarded as the first set of photographs ever taken in Ireland in around 1848. I’ve wanted to do this comparison for years – at last got round to it:
It is spooky to see real people from such an early time – also poignant to note this was taken in the last 2 to 3 years of respectability for the Northside – it was downhill all the way from here 🙁
I wonder if it was ever anticipated just how bad things would get…A close-up of the people:
Don’t know why they’re associating with that riff-raff on the right 🙂
Also a strange comparison with today – pretty impressed at how well aligned the modern day camera position turned out. Spooky that I was standing on the exact spot of the photographer 😮
As you do in a church 🙂
The oil-lamp stands are incredible survivers here – loads of them, even round the back. Another strange similarity to St. Stephen’s:
Just on the title of this thread again, the city centre was far from clean today, indeed it seemed dirtier than usual.
College Green looks particularly awful at the moment wth the roadway outside Trinity dug up all over the place. There was a lot of litter around too and combined with a large ‘dumpster’ in the middle of the flippin footpath, it was none-too pleasant.
The state of the roadway on Lower Grafton St is also a disgrace – it still hasn’t been upgraded since all that work on the Spar there months ago.
And Grafton St was still packed with goods vechicles past 10 in the morning which is ridiculous – we really are the laziest people going.As for the usual suspect of Upper O’Connell Street today, just appalling:
Saying that, a lot of attention has been paid to Lower O’Cll St to clean the place up.
