GrahamH
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Ah it has its other meaning too, if admittedly a loaded word.
Two notable developments on the Upper street of late:
As already mentioned, Hammam Buildings and associated structures in Horace O’Rourke’s terrace are currently being cleaned and in most cases the windows being replaced by more appropriate ‘bronzed’ frames. One granite elevation has already been shorn of its scaffold and the transformation is surprisingly remarkable. It looks exactly like those crisp images of the newly completed sparkling terraces you see in 1920s photographs of the street. Very peculiar seeing it in real life; it gives a vivid sense of what large parts of the street looked like post-1916 and 1922. The Portland dressings particularly stand out. Sadly the hideous mirrored windows have not been replaced in that particular case and arguably stand out even more now.
Secondly, National Irish Bank have shut their Upper O’Connell Street premises, absorbing the branch into their College Green operation, as part of a wider restructuring of the bank.
(2006)This is a signifcant development for the street, freeing up one of its largest retail floorplates while (presumably) releasing onto the market one of its finest buildings – a premises that has stagnated for a number of years with its inactive pavement frontage and rather tattered – bordering on sleazy – appearance.
So what of a future use? Significantly with banks, the entire premises is usually in single ownership.
The shopfront in this case is probably not original, but nonetheless makes a brave attempt to support that hefty pile of pretension perched atop. Designed by Scottish architect David Bryce, it was built in 1868 as the Dublin headquarters of Standard Life Assurance. It could make the most elegant of small hotels with a smart restaurant at ground floor level, but there’s no fuel in the hotel market at the minute. The latter business isn’t much better.
Whoever moves in here must set a new standard for uses/retailing on O’Connell Street – a major opportunity that cannot be allowed to be wasted. One positive of the Carlton development is that this will signifcantly ease the perceived risk for any high profile or so-called ‘higher order’ use that might otherwise have reservations about moving in here. Though Metro may put paid to that…
A timely article 😉
Good to see the review is upcoming at last. The simple reality is that this SPAC was never enforced on any level other than when planning applications came in and cursory reference was made to the area’s designation. Otherwise forget it.
Walk anywhere along any of the streets in the area and you will be hard pressed to pass more than three units in sucession where at least one if not violating the controls. The greatest farce is without question Supermacs on O’Connell Street, where posters are tacked across every available inch of glass and a loudspeaker is mounted to the exterior of the building, blasting music out so loudly it can be heard at the other side of the street. It simply beggars belief, contravening a number of SPAC provisions, not to mention being but a few doors down from the GPO. And of course because they got away with it here, they simply copied and pasted the same practices, to the letter, in their Westmoreland Street branch where they’re also getting away with it.
What is most frustrating about all of this is not so much the tangible results of these practices across the entire area, but the fact that this planning tool, as brought in under the 2000 Act as a legal instrument, is effectively being proven not to work. Whether that is down to inaction on the part of authorities or the unenforceable nature of the legislation in some cases is a matter of debate, but it would appear overwhelmingly to be the former. This is supposed to be the flagship SPAC and ACA in Ireland. If it is not enforceable by the largest local authority in the land, what hopes can we hold for the rest of the country?
Thanks for that S.O.S – I’ll keep that quote in mind, unless Pot Noodle can beat it ;). Sounds about right!
When you say you use Pilkington glass if asked for double-glazing, do you mean you use single-glazed Pilkington as an alternative, or double-glazed Pilkington? What do you do when a client insists on double-glazing with a Georgian sash? Do you take a deep breath and go with 30mm bars or stick to your morals?
Also, what sort of thickness of d/g unit is best, and is it possible to putty in double-glazed units? It would appear that using clunky beading instead of putty is now the only barrier to an acceptable use of thin d/g units in sash windows (Victorian anyway, whatever of Georgian). The use of specially treated high performance single-glazing which acts the same as double-glazing (and as featured on Grand Designs last week) doesn’t seem to have caught on here. It’s been available for years! Have you ever made use of this? (apologies for the twenty questions)
It’s extraordinary the difference draught-proofing makes to sashes alright. Reducing the air changes in a room dramatically affects levels of heat retention. Indeed only recently I was in a modern house where the back door had a terrible draughty gap around the edges, and the room was about 50% colder than the rest of the house, in spite of having the same relative coverage of central heating.
Out of curiosity, S.O.S or Pot Noodle, what’s the industry norm cost to build a large segment-headed two-over-two sash window from scratch? Obviously I don’t want to start WWlll here, but a ballpark figure would be much appreciated.
(apologies, not looking for work at the minute)
And perhaps to steer things to a more constructive end, what sort of challenges are you facing in terms of energy conservation versus authentic design considerations? Particularly in relation to double glazing, but also Low-E glass etc. How have you found local authorities in their attitudes towards preserving the integrity of windows of Protected Structures you’ve worked on? Do they give a toss over detailing? How do you advise your clients that insist on an insulation gain with their reproduction sashes over first generation PVC they’re replacing?
It’d be most interesting to hear your thoughts on these matters given you’re at the coal face.
I thought the hot butter was a means of preservation rather than to create a delicacy of sorts. Perhaps the preservation gives them a different quality? Apparently it was very common in Ireland (according to the tour guide in the ESB townhouse anyway. I presume his facts are more genuine than the house).
It’s bizarre nowadays to think of hens not laying in the cold months. Here’s one process:
J. B., Strathnairn said,”I take a tub of any size and put a layer of common salt about an inch deep in the bottom; then grease the eggs with butter (of course salted butter), and place them in the salt with the small end down, so that they will not touch the wood of the tub near each other; then fill the vacancies with salt, and cover them again about an inch deep as before; then place another layer of eggs as before; then salt alternately till the tub is filled; then cover the top’ with salt, and put them where they will not freeze. I have kept eggs in this manner from September until April as. good as fresh. The grease on the Shell keeps the Salt from penetrating, thereby keeping the eggs fresh, while the saving qualities, of the salt keep them from becoming putrid. This recipe is both cheap and good, as the salt can be fed to cattle afterward.”
I’m sure the cattle couldn’t wait for that treat.
oooh, either way it sounds creamy…
@George_Kaplan wrote:
What absolute twoddle! I live on an adjacent street to O’Connell Street and think your post is way off the mark. O’Connell St is actually a rather pleasant street these days. It’s an outdated perception that O’Connell St is a yob-infested area full of “late night brawls”. There’s a Garda presence on O’Connell St, visible 24 hours a day, right down Talbot St and Gardiner St, this nucleus of streets being packed with Tourist accommodation. Yobbish behaviour is clamped down upon and is no different than any other part of the city. This “urine, urine, urine” really is not in evidence on O’Connell the way it is in Temple Bar, perhaps down to the constant cleaning by the council workers with those motor-bins.
I also disagree with some posters’ negative take on the commercial make-up on the street. What’s wrong with The Savoy, Eason’s, Beshoff’s, Penney’s (socks and boxers), Ned Kelly’s snooker hall, Clery’s, the Kylemore for some quality Dublinesque people-watching, the Grand Central Pub? Upper part is a bit tatty, around Dr Quirky’s Good-Time Emporium, but isn’t that down to a protracted planning dispute? Also, it has 6 fast-food restaurants, which really is no more excessive than any other comparative European main-street, and the banks of course.
A favourite feature of mine is the tall, pointy thing in the centre of the street.
I know: why not visit, and perhaps browse the archival pieces on display in the General Post Office on your way back from cashing in your bus tickets? Enjoy your paper, picked up at a news stand, over a pint in the Grand Central – won’t find any riff-raff here!
Well of course it’s an outdated perception when picked up six years later! O’Connell Street has transformed itself on a physical and social level from that of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Even the past number of years has seen a notable increase in the numbers using the street at all hours of the day, driven by such factors as the vastly increased numbers of buses using the route (alas), new immigrant population, an increased sense of security after dark, and the continuous Garda presence. It’s a whole other world to that of the dank and intimidating thoroughfare of shadow-casting trees, dishevelled public domain, dull orange sodium lighting and the undeniable anti-social element that often made it a no-go area after dark. I, no doubt like you George, constantly use the street at most hours of the day and night, and have done for years – I’m well aware of the transformation effected. And you’re right: as has been noted many times here, the maintenance of the street is the best in the entire city. Flawless.
There was an understandable concern back then that many of the new furnishings suggested in the IAP would be damaged by the anti-social element that hitherto had a significant presence on the street. As most of these notional ideas such as pedestrian level lighting, sculptures, water features and kiosks never actually came about, we had little to be concerned with. It’s fair to assume if they had, given what we now can observe, they would have held up well.
The make-up of most streets that ‘work’ comprises a broad mix of uses, often with a use that slightly weighs above others – sometimes food, others services, others still clothing etc. This draws a base target audience while also allowing for more niche trade. O’Connell Street without question suffers from a predominance of lower order uses, never mind even a basic draw to the street outside of Clerys. It is often touted that these ‘popular’ uses pull in the crowds, but the question is rarely asked: what of the lost market? Who is avoiding the area as a result? And on a tourist level, how many linger on, let alone return to, O’Connell Street? Get your snaps of the Spire and GPO and run – there’s nothing to keep you there. The Carlton and City Library schemes will transform this, but the street will still need to stand on its own two feet on a small-scale retail basis, in particular the eastern side. Effectively the street has now transformed into the equivalent of an airport terminal mall, with retail nearly exclusively catering for the bus stop market. Convenience stores, fast food, bank ATMs, budget travel operators, bag shops, and more convenience stores.
It’s not about killing useful services, it’s about getting the balance right.
Great stuff, dc3, thanks for that. Interesting that it ceased to be a cinema so early on, in 1945, following Farrell’s death.
More interesting again is that the Grand Central cinema of the same chain on Lower O’Connell Street was destroyed by fire the following year…
Do have a flick through this fascinating personal album. A Dublin of a different world.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ei9hk07/_B1965HoneymoonInDublin#5112179790591929106
Good to see DCC laying down the line there. However the proposal for ‘continuity of design from O’Connell Street’ is something I would not like to see. A similar all-encompassing and high quality standard of works yes, precision paving absolutely, but the same catalogue furniture most definitely no. There is nothing distinguished about O’Connell Street’s furnishings, let alone any other virtue that would make them worthy of rollout across the city centre.
In any event, actions speak louder that words. The latest gobsmacking developments on the College Street island, right in front of the Lords portico.
I mean, where do you start?
Lets not waste out breath on such matters. Rather, just a thought on a potential attraction for Westmoreland Street. Clearly we’ll never get anything approaching the original Wide Streets Commission scheme back, but wouldn’t it be a heartening development were one of the few straggling remnants of the WSC to be fully restored to its original condition?
One of the best examples is the Abrakebabra building on the west side.
It would be a very worth development were one of these buildings purchased in their entirety – possibly, just possibly by DCC – the original shopfront reinserted, the internal mezzanine put back to its original state, and the ground floor used as a good quality restaurant or café (mezzanines don’t support many other uses). The upper floors could then be restored to their late 18th century state as an example of a typical merchant’s dwelling above a shop, where guided tours could be given and possibly an exhibition on trade or retail life in Dublin of the late 1700s in the (surely) substantial basement. It could be a real gem on the street if someone would take it on. It could serve as a particularly needed attraction on the otherwise dead eastern side.
On a related note, I see the ownerners of the Guinness store building have just repainted the windows of their upper floors. It has drawn attention to the fact that those of the top two levels are the very last Wide Streets Commission windows surviving on all of Westmoreland Street. The glazing bars were just chopped out 🙂
Important survivors.
As Jim Keenan notes in his book, Dublin Cinemas, the original foyer was clad in walnut and satinwood panelling, with a leaded glass dome floating overhead, perhaps not unlike that of the grand Central bar on Lower O’Connell Street dating to c. 1918.
As one would expect, the auditorium was decorated in a stripped classical style, with pilasters interspersed with panels along the walls.
This picture from around 1925 clearly shows the original exterior ground floor treatment, including elaborate arched canopy with vigorously channeled stone surround.
© RTÉ Stills Library
© RTÉ Stills Library(too much in that picture to comment on in this post!)
The boxy rear elevation of yellow stock brick, typical of early cinemas. This suggests no fragment of the original townhouse survived the remodeling.
The damage and subsequent repair of bullet holes are still visible on at least one of the columns and lower cornice, probably more likely to date from 1922 than 1916.
The façade is typically ebullient late Edwardian, with a rather crowded upper elevation, busy with a heavy cornice, expansive frieze and decorous Ionic capitals.
Alas this all appears ridiculously stranded above a bland modern shopfront, which appears to have replaced the original as late as the 1980s.
Alas the same old crude floodlighting scheme has been retained instead of a clever new LED scheme emplyed. It’s a facade that cries out for such treatment.
The quaint little porthole windows set into the facade of original glossy machine-made brick.
These windows may have had a practical purpose, as it was common in the early 20th century to incorporate a low mezzanine level with small windows to illuminate an internal glazed dome.
A little charmer of a building; a welcome imporvement but a shame a greater effort wasn’t made to restore some form of dignity to the lower floors.
Meanwhile, across the road some may have noticed that the McDonald’s building at No. 62 has just had a scaffold removed after a cleaning of its facade.
Before
After
Hardly an earth shattering change, but it is more noticeable at close quarters.
Carried out by the firm ACOL, the project involved the cleaning of the brick and terracotta (possibly sandstone) dressings, an apparent repointing of masonry, and repainting of the windows. Alas, yet again day glo brilliant white has been favoured over a sultry dark shade appropriate to the period of the building.
No. 62 is an interesting structure as it is one of the few rebuilt buildings on O’Connell Street dating to before the ‘troubles’ which survived perfectly intact. The street was heaving with such pompous facades by the turn of 1900, the vast majority of which were blitzed over the following two decades. While many of the refaced townhouses remained standing, very few grandiose buildings did. Bryce’s modern-day National Irish Bank, the (now demolished Gilbeys) and this building at No. 62 were the only three purpose-built major survivors.
No. 62 O’Connell Street was first built as one of Luke Gardiner’s meaner two-bay houses on the western side of Sackville Mall, probably built by other developers, which extended for the length of about eight houses from Henry Street to the modern-day Dublin Bus premises, which acted as the starting hurdle for a terrace of larger houses reaching up to Parnell Street. Demolished roundabout 1913, No. 62 was rebuilt to the designs of Aubrey V. O’Rourke, throwing open its doors as the Pillar Picture House in December 1914. This was probably O’Rourke’s first venture on the street, where he would later move on to win the commission for the much more substantial Metrople building beside the GPO c. 1917, on the current Penneys site.
@ctesiphon wrote:
Which Butler’s is that? Or am I misunderstanding?
I think we all are. Not quite the decorated heritage fridge units we’re accustomed to.
Yep, an excellent development isn’t it. The application went in a good few weeks ago.
This is the type of outlet in which Dublin is sorely lacking, which in spite of a good effort, the Bank restaurant further down on College Green isn’t particularly successful in achieving. At the end of the day the bar takes precedence and the hall lacks intimacy. missarchi’s ‘Butler’s’ picture hints at what College Green is deserving of and what could be created here.
Removing the front mezzanine will do much to improve the internal character of the place which at present is disorientating in layout and the wider architectural scheme compromised. Unlike the common design device of creating a modest vestibule to emphasise a greater space, at the Habitat building the entrance just feels pokey, temporary and thoroughly unbefitting of exterior expectations. And as much as the off-white tones are crisp and elegant, a bit of ebullient Victoriana wouldn’t go amiss on the paint front.
All in all very exciting. And good move on rebuilding the party wall – that unit would never sell on with that crazed layout.
Even when you know it’s coming, it doesn’t make it any easier when it happens.
🙁
If it’s any vague consolation, at least PVC window design has refined itself somewhat in recent years.
Well put spoil_sport. And shanekeane, since when have ‘the people of Ireland’ ever shown ownership of Dublin? Aside from using it as a personal Monopoly board to carve up according to their own whims over the past 50 years, traditionally there has been close to zero interest in the city other than amongst those who live in it.
I suppose capitals worldwide tend to be the butt of jealousies and a certain degree of resentment, but we take it to a whole new level in this country. A little more lovin’ from these peoples Dublin represents wouldn’t go amiss before making pronouncements on its essential character.
@Frank McDonald wrote:
The Pars carpet gallery beside Philips, which passers-by would remember for its gilt-framed woven portrait of a fixed-grin Mary Robinson in the window, closed down nearly a year ago and has just reopened as yet another Spar.
And now I see that Spar didn’t even apply for planning permission for their new shopfront. They’ve a retention application in. Quite extraordinary with such a high profile case, and indication yet again of the appalling lack of regulation of convenience stores. Not only should the shopfront not be there (which while reticent, is clumsily detailed), the shop shouldn’t be either.
@markpb wrote:
Can anyone tell me what the advert is for?
As reluctant as I am to publicise, IKEA’s recruitment for its Ballymun store. One person I encountered thought they were announcing their opening on the street itself. Heartening the distinguished esteem in which the capital’s main thoroughfare is still held amongst its populace.
