GrahamH
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If I recall correctly from the statement issued by the senior DCC planning offical at the recent public convening of the Special Policy Committee, the bridge will not be open until mid-2010.
Looks great though. Glad to see the black sheathing yokeamabobs at the junction of the cables and the arm disappear in later photographs.
Ironically, it shows the ski slope in a particularly ridiculous light relative to its context.
Only noticed last night that the groom of the Happy Ring House no longer illuminates. Apparently he’s been like that for some time, leading to speculation about a rift in the relationship, and the distinct possibility that the wedding might even be off. There were further rumours about herself left up there on her own, but they seemed more humorous at 4.30am. The neon signage is one of the few such installations in the city that is a Protected Structure (as part of the wider building).
Yep absolutely! And shush, spoil_sport. People will start getting ideas about us and buildings on the quays.
No really, the drum has a dramatic quality looking directly upwards, but that’s about it, sadly.
Actually getting built is not a virtue of a major civic structure, or indeed any building that helps shape the public realm.
@Peter Fitz wrote:
In a way i’m surprised at your surprise Graham ?
If ever a building lived up to its modelling & renders this is it. !To be honest, you’re 100 per cent correct on that Peter. The centre looks exactly as those dodgy renders first purported it to be from the outset all those years ago. I suppose I got so used to them, as we all have over such a long period, that objectivity begins to fade. Seeing it in the flesh brings matters home like a bullet train smashing you in the face – it’s frightening to observe such a disaster unfold on a mammoth scale in front of your eyes!
Aside from the obvious faults of the design of the structure outlined above, what is perhaps most disappointing about CCD is how this major public building effectively holds the same status as every other office park development along both sides of the quays. It exhibits the same crew cut, the same boxy character, the same ‘unit-ising’ approach of the building appearing constrained by a regimented plot of land doled out as if located in an IDA industrial estate, and the same conformity with the quay line. The fact that the building doesn’t even take account of the amenity and modicum of breathing space offered by the adjacent canal makes its design all the more incontextual and arbitrary.
Without question, people will look back in decades to come, when this building is eventually handed over to the State, and wonder who the heck was running the show for an entirely new-build, brownfield docklands redevelopment to not even have the ability to accommodate a major piece of public infrastructure with a modicum of architectural swagger, never mind civic presence and grandeur. Such a wasted opportunity.
Meanwhile, over at Marino Crescent, we have yet another example of newly installed, appallingly detailed double-glazed sash windows. These have just been fitted in the focal pair of central houses on Dublin’s most important (and really only) Georgian crescent. How appropriate.
Blank, expressionless double-glazing, thick glazing bars, beading instead of putty, broad stiles and rails, Victorian horns, and an overly protruding sash frame. These windows quite simply could not be any worse if they tried.
And yet this is what we get in Ireland even with flagship conservation projects such as this.
The applicant submitted:
“The existing PVC windows are inconsistent with the character of the houses. It is our intention to replace these windows with painted up and down sash windows with correct design including moulding, sash and rail detail. They will be in fully working order. This work will be carried out by an approved specialist.“
So straight away these windows are inconsistent with the submitted plans, never mind any objective assessment. The planner’s report conditioned that all works should be carried out in accordance with the Department of Environment’s Architectural Heritage Protection Guidelines for Local Authorities. For the sake of clarity, we shall quote but one of many relevant extracts from that document on the detailing of historic windows:
“The recommended specification for sealed double-glazed units makes them too bulky for fitting to historic sashes or casements. International standards recommend that the sealed space between the two panes of glass in the sealed unit should be more than 12mm and preferably about 20mm, which is nearly the full depth of most sash and casement frames. The appearance of the window will be altered by the visible black or silver seals which are part of the double-glazed unit and by the rubber or plastic gaskets or timber beading used to seal the units within the frame (which should be substantial to comply with recommended standards). Seals have a life span of perhaps two decades and, when they fail, the unit must be replaced. In that period it is unlikely that the cost of installation will have been recouped through savings on energy bills.”
This muck is cropping up absolutely everywhere. Even the involvement of Ireland’s preeminent historic buildings consultant as advisor on the project did not stop this happening.
Yep. It’s notable actually how all of the international retailers are really the only ones with decent shop displays in Dublin. Even BT’s innovative displays (with fantastic lighting units at the minute incidentally) claim their origins from the firm’s international ownership. Arnotts make a good attempt, but their tounge-in-cheek approach never quite works in that 1960s host environment.
Could I just ramp up criticism of the Ilac facade a gear. It grossly offends me every time I pass. It’s not even a building – a cardboard cutout piece of urban infill trash. Absolute rubbish. The redundancy of the upper levels is particularly frustrating, while the choice of materials virtually across the board is cheap, tawdry and thoroughly disposable. It also makes no attempt to generate an ‘incident’ or sense of grand entrance on the streetscape. Shame on whoever threw it together.
18/4/2009
Oh my god, so River Island has like, finally, like opened on Henry Street, yeah!
This is loike, so fantaaaastic. Gingham shirts, skinny jeans and hair straighteners at the ready guys! (diamante earring optional)
Finally this vacant unit has been filled (and more importantly all of that nasty advertising hoarding removed) and a new focus given to the junction of the three streets here. The Henry Street/Mary Street axis is now holding up well, with big (if universal) attractions distributed evenly along its length. All we need is that vertical band of crassness to the right removed and we’ll be getting somewhere. One suspects we shall be waiting.
The fit-out is of a good standard, typical of River Island (and miles above that of H&M), with a cavernous ground floor and a more modestly scaled first floor. The demands of what is now the theatre of retail has resulted in some clever uses of materials, notably lining the stairwell.
Sadly, however, this new facade to the Ilac remains the cheap, incoherent and unimaginative paper-thin commercial veil it always was. I cannot see it lasting even as long as the original Ilac did.
Lovely glossy sheen there alright!
Truly, I want to like the NCC. It is important to feel affection for a public building. I agree with reddy about the striking view from O’Connell Bridge – a view vista is born in the city. Very surprising to see it glinting beneath the Loop Line Bridge!
But so very sadly, this is where the love affair must end. I visited the site over the weekend for the very first time since construction began. Never have I been more sorely disappointed with a piece of architecture. Aside from the drum, which holds obvious – if popular – appeal, the building as a whole is the most spectacularly ugly concoction to land in the city since Robocop on Dame Street. It is so breath-takingly, staggeringly bad in real life as to make one wonder why the Emperor has no clothes. Is nobody else actually seeing this?! Really, get down there and have a look at what is unfolding before our eyes!
A gigantic, immensely arrogant, dusty pink, stone-clad leaden block, topped with swoopy parapets plucked from of the worst Miami beach residential architecture of the 1980s, barely punctuated by random, minimal flush bands of windows employed as postmodernist racing stripes. This host box for the poor unfortunate drum has translated so spectacularly badly from concept into real life (though it must be acknowledged a number of people here did point this out long before now), that it is nothing short of an embarrassment to the city as a supposedly prized civic building. At least Mansfield’s stuff out on the M50 is shameless, even comforting, in its ignorance; the NCC by contrast – which has PPP written all over it – has no such excuse.
I love the drum: obvious but fun and civic-minded, but the rest is well, I really don’t know what else to say…
What would be the icing on the cake now would be a chic 30-storey plus slab block rising out of it! The last thing this yoke needs is further complication. Such a disappointment. Here’s hoping most delegates will arrive along the quay and look up at the imposing projecting barrel – one of its few virtues.
@S.O.S. wrote:
Can you get me the name of this glass
Sorry S.O.S., forgot about this. Here is the website of the company featured on Grand Designs.
http://www.slimliteglass.co.uk/home.html
(try to muddle through the desperately written text)
Looking at their product, it’s clear Kevin McCloud was incorrect in describing the glass as being single-glazed – it is in fact double-glazed. Nonetheless, it is still remarkably thin, at only 12mm for the slimmest of units. The perimeter seal is also only 5mm wide, meaning it is invisible when used with a standard 6-7mm rebate in a glazing bar. The type of spacing used also eliminates cold bridging at the edges, common with typical double-glazing. They claim their units can be used for most single-glazed applications.
Ah jaysus aj, you’re killing me with quoting pictures! The photo account bandwidth is reaching boiling point, at over 300,000 hits a month! (though maybe that’s a gentle hint to me just to stop posting pictures).
Agreed the building could do with some serious TLC, as with many similar structures on O’Connell Street and Westmoreland Street. One reason to be thankful for the many second-rate uses in the upper levels of these buildings is the generally good state of preservation of original features made possible by their occupancy, allbethey often in poor condition or covered over. The more cash injected in times past generally equalled a parallel increase in the removal of such features.
Where there is separate access, there is significant potential for permanent mixed commercial and residential uses of these upper floors, with fabulous views out over the city’s principal thoroughfare. As far as I’m aware, the apartments over the Grand Central Bar, and over the Happy Ring House (now possibly unoccupied), are the only residences on the entire street.
What a complete disaster.
Down at the other end of the street at No. 55, stands one of the most distinctive structures on the thoroughfare, with its quirky Victorian gable perched on top of one of the few surviving Wide Streets Commission buildings.
As previously mentioned, this was home to the clockmakers, Chancellor & Son, with their clock plinth and its ghostly outline still surviving above the shopfront.
Peppered with bullets in 1916, it was restored afterwards, as seen above c. 1950s.
These Victorian alterations tie in nicely with Victorian cornicing seen inside the front room at first floor level.
The lower public level also features a robust Victorian newel post and balustrade (the latter going downwards).
As can be seen above and below, this quickly turns back into a Georgian staircase of the late 1780s for all of the uppermost floors!
(A random Victorian baluster in the mix there). This could well be the last surving WSC stairs on all of O’Connell Street, and certainly the last of three at best, assuming neighbouring buildings retain some rare fragments.
4/4/2009
A large expanse of the northern wing of the South City Markets was cleaned at the end of 2008 by Dunnes Stores, adding to other sections on Exchquer Street which have already been treated to date. The warm brick looks magnificent in the sun.
As can be seen, the southern wing has yet to be cleaned.
The discernable contrast.
A comparison between the north and south wings.
The stripping of redundant clutter also helps considerably in improving the building’s appearance.
Windows.
Greater enforcement of shopfront design guidelines is critical. This recent horrendous fascia mounted on a unit in the unified series of Victorian shopfronts is one of the worst in the entire city. What a shame. So unnecessary.
A delightful complex. Truly one of the great sights of the city.
Fitzpatricks on Grafton Street is an example of a beautifully designed shopfront. International chic it may be, and with a soulless personality to boot, but it nonetheless oozes quality and sophistication. The sharp glazing and high contrast shop displays look particularly outstanding in the evening.
Essentially it is a postmodern surround refined to more contemporary tastes. The pilasters are a tad stunted atop those tall plinths, but generally the composition and detailing are spot on.
Exquiste crisp black lettering. This only recently replaced almost brand new steel lettering, presumably as it stands out more.
(now that I think of it, it was probably just painted!)
Alas, as is typical with glossy developments in Ireland of the boom era, it’s all skirt and no knickers. Nasty PVC abounds on the upper storeys.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Indeed both premises are almost entirely fitted out with the same muck. These all went in just as the ACA was adopted about 18 months-two years ago. Nothing has happened.
We’re great at the aul vista closures in Dublin :rolleyes:. No commitment to quality.
So make a bad building even worse? I couldn’t give two hoots about the effect it has on the building – it is the streetscape impact, which is vulgar and unduly cluttering. Yeah I agree it’s nothing major, but it is symptomatic of how these places go unregulated, and often aided and abetted – as in this case – by architectural practices who wouldn’t know anything of a sense of streetscape if it hit them in the face; as their other masterstroke around the corner has further proved.
So what next for these guys – a Heineken smoking canopy outside Buswells?
Shock!
If ever there were two cases that demonstrate how the precedent of lax planning informs future development.
It is this sort of accumluation of ignorant design concepts that has compromised so much of the appearance of the city centre – firms acting exclusively in the interests of their clients, and a planning system which assists them in their aims.
Absolutely. I’ve always liked this building – streamlined and elegant (apron panels aside).
Which is why it’s disappointing to say, having passed yesterday, all of the polished cladding has already been ripped off. The above is the last ever photograph taken of that design 🙁
Yes I agree. It is also the perfect location for the three statues recently removed from the Millenium Garden on Dame Street, not least as they would be returning home, having originally come from the 1865 Exhibition Palace on Earlsfort Terrace when it was remodelled for UCD into its current form in 1914.
They currently languish in storage wrapped up in steel sections, ironically out of doors, when they could just as easily rest out of doors in the Iveagh Gardens where people could actually see them.
Yes, the conversion to offices is extremely unfortunate, even if the physcial manifestation of which is ‘light in touch’, ‘reversible’, ‘readable’, ‘independently structurally expressive’ yadda yadda. The loss of the pews at least gave some cause for such a radical new use, but the restriction on public access is most regrettable, as is the compromising of the interior’s original spatial qualities. Reversable or not, what is there is what is there – and is likely to be there for a very long time. We have weak policy on the conversion of historic churches.
Otherwise, the exterior restoration has not simply been excellent, it has been masterful. It would be an injustice to post pictures of the building until such a time as the last fragments of scaffolding (currently in the form of mesh about the vents of the tower) have been fully removed.
