GrahamH
Forum Replies Created
- Posts
16/1/2009
Good to see the Conservation Plan in full force as ever.
From Polish magnificence to pole wars.
Lovely.
Now most of these preposterous articles were here already, but it appears they’re being replaced with new ones rather than actually being removed. Why in the name of all that is sane are parking signs required where there are bollards blocking off most parking in their vicinity?
And of course the delightful entrance to the street.
How many years has this apartment barracks been completed now? How much was the development contribution to DCC – surely approaching the million mark?
A moment of sophistication indeed.
@Pot Noodle wrote:
All the bricks and decorative pieces were all numbered taken down and stored and restored off site while it was rebuilt and then reassembled on site again like a giant jigsaw puzzle my mate done the roof
Ah thanks for that Pot Noodle. And the site clearance certainly explains the wholesale new appearance.
Alas, only the decorative keystones and teracotta panels were recycled though. The entire facade is definitely modern brick. Strange a facade retention wasn’t employed, however dubious a practice. Upon closer inspection, the original brick next door is in perfect condition, so it wasn’t the brick integrity that was in question anyway.
And a further example of where unregulated retailers get their way…
Why is it called the Opera Centre?
3/1/2009
What a sad scene below. Photographed here only a few short months ago, this pair of remarkable survivors in Dundalk has just been mauled.
Perfectly encapsulating the hierarchy in 19th century window manufacture, it is likely these houses were built by a small-scale developer, with the right-hand house his own home with expensive sheet glass sashes, and the left-hand house rented out or sold off with more frugal old-style Georgian sashes.
All on a diminutive scale and as good as perfectly preserved. Rare pristine Irish vernacular.
Today.
(cameraphone)
My stomach rolled upon observing – I still feel sick just seeing the pictures.
The fact this is an Architectural Conservation Area makes it all the more frustrating. ACAs mean absolutely nothing in Ireland because there is zero awareness amongst property owners and tenants of their obligations. In any event, there is almost zero pride amongst communities of the appearance of their streets and terraces, with none of that civic-minded, if stuffy, Protestant ethic that brought so much of the smart terraces surrounding the above houses into being in the first place, and maintained them for so long, as with so much of our built heritage.
I’m so tired of this sort of rubbish, there’s just no point in highlighting it anymore. Dundalk as with every other town in Ireland is simply swimming in a sea of plastic and ignorant ill-informed alterations, with zero guidance from under-resourced local authorities. Protected Structure and ACA status means absolutely nothing – indeed if anything, these buildings are more vunerable than most, as they tend to be located in highly commercialised or heavily developed, desirable locations.
There is almost no concept in this country of promoting a quality heritage product for either visitors or citizens, let alone doing so purely on the merits of the aesthetic of these buildings alone. This was starkly highlighted at a recent bells-n-whistles international conference held by Bord Fáilte in Dublin, where one of the invited guests stood up on stage and asked how many reps from local authorities or planners were in attendance, out of the hundreds in the hall. Not a single person put up their hand. Just let Bob the Builder & Friends get on with their work.
2/1/2009
To try and be constructive (and perhaps consolidate issue-driven threads rather than location-specific ones), below is an example of an admirable small-scale apartment block recently completed in Dundalk.
Ignoring the municipal clutter, it’s a rare example of rubble stone being used in a expressly modern way, employed for its inherent characteristics of warmth and texture, rather than any attempt to be faux-traditional. Its use alongside a similarly coloured brick works surprisingly well, while for once, yellow-painted render is contextual.
The balconies are generous and elegantly detailed – the smoked glass a curious but effective concealing throwback to the 1980s.
Okay it’s not going to win awards, but then most buildings shouldn’t. What it is however, is a well considered, subtle design that takes account of its riverine setting, of which we should see more being built on a wider level.
Similarly, a little further down the Ramparts River is this very successful conversion of a 19th century warehouse.
Not remotely self-conscious or brash in impact, the conversion appears completely organic, while also making an elegant contemporary statement.
I suspect some/all of this may actually be offices, but it’s equally relevant to residential.
Now compare the likes of the above to what recently went up across the road.
If architects are beholded to their clients, it’s up to planners to enforce better standards.(And if they were beholden 3-4 years ago, I’d hate to think what it’s like now).
Okay if I’d known this was to turn into a psychoanalysing session, I’d never have posted! Indulgent parents indeed – says the PD from Howth 😉
The reason the brick colour was so uniform is that every birthday and Christmas for a decade equalled Lego – inevitably town sets. So quite the collection of white hospitals, restaurants and police stations built up! A shame tan brick wasn’t widely available then – the perfect Ardbraccan limestone substitute. Tsk.
Although the purist wouldn’t allow it either way of course…
Anyway the point of this is to encourage others to post about their earlier architectural ambitions, so come on! (and with a particularly uncomfortable focus on jimg).
Oh and a remarkably astute observation on Irish built heritage conservation.
annnnnnyway…
I’m regretting this already, but in the spirit of New Year frivolity, I unearthed some prints of some distinctly dubious childhood recreations of Dublin buildings. The Custom House as I recall took over a whole corner of the bedroom.
Gandon must be rolling in his grave.
In retrospect, I seem to have carried out a Francis Johnstonesque filling in of the arcades. How very tongue-in-cheek. Clearly additional floorspace is an equally pressing concern in the Lego world. Not a disastrous attempt for a 12/13 year old though. As with most of these models, the whole facade was floodlit with 12v bulbs, with an extra powerful flood for the cupola :). Others were dicreetly hidden behind the balustrade. I remember being especially proud of the clock, which was back-illuminated in green. Alas the compose -> flash -> live-with-it process of an automatic camera didn’t quite do it justice :(. The woeful dome was a dodgily painted Mullerice pot.
Hopefully this one can be made out without a caption.
Again, severely constrained by the Great Brick Shortage of the mid-90s. A Neil Jordan-like artistic licence was taken in respect of O’Connell Street. And I don’t care what anyone says – plastic Victorian municipal planting is far more gracious a foil to the GPO than a rank of 7Up taxi bikes :). The innovation in this case was that Hibernia, Fidelity and Mercury were individually illuminated (if just a tad out of proportion lol).
And a stripped Big Ben (must be the Lego recession), dating from goodness knows when. It’s only worthy of remark for that marvellous wallpaper.
Also one of many surviving retail buildings. Absolutely pristine.
And this little gem further down Bridge Street. I remember being dragged whinging into this shop as a child. It was one of the last surviving local businesses that sold absolutely everything in its field – in this case haberdashery.
The two little amalgamated shops with low timber-lined ceilings were packed to the rafters with every product under the sun. The owner, a Mrs Flynn, used to just rummage through piles of bags and boxes to get what you were looking for – i.e. you always had to ask 🙂
Goodness knows what’s going to happen to it now, if a few doors down is anything to go by….
The former Wiseman’s Inn – a handsome classical building mauled. This is happening absolutely everywhere.
While this development, which can only be described as criminal, has just been thrown up next door.
Mountjoy Women’s Prison has greater appeal. Shocking, shocking stuff.
I passed this rare survivor yesterday, which was posted here a few years ago and is now up for sale. It is on the An Tasice Buildings at Risk register. Incredibly, this perfectly intact, possibly small farm/holding building or forge, is just off the busy main street of the town.
This grand, symmetrical late Georgian (really Victorian) terrace of 1851 dominates the centre of the town. Extremely old-fashioned in detailing for its date, in Dublin it’d be about 1790. Again it is in pristine original condition, though sadly recent incremental changes are already altering this in spite of PS and ACA designations.
Scott Tallon Walker’s elegant new theatre extension to DKIT. Very hot.
And the Crowne Plaza in a flash moment of enlightenment.
A building that elevates beyond the average when seen from certain angles. Strangely, it looks like it’s fashioned out of cardboard.
Jeez, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Happy New Year johnglas 🙂
Just some pictures of the handsome domestic vernacular to be seen about the side streets of the town. Dundalk was remarkably prosperous during the 19th century, at a time when the rest of the country was on its knees. Countless travellers and visitors of the time noted it too.
Heartening to see some people still invest appropriately in their homes.
Greater pretentions here.
This was recently proposed for demolition and the site and gardens redeveloped for apartments :rolleyes:. Thankfully refused.
31/12/2008
Just an update on this commercial building on Market Square which has just been completed. It clearly demonstrates the folly that is shimmering glazing in most architectural renderings.
Alas the detailing as executed is poor, with almost zero contrast with the supposed black louvre feature and glazing bars, while the lower elevation is sadly chaotic, with internal blinds, multiple materials and different coloured aprons.
Bit of a shambles really. Hardly the coherence of form espoused by the render, nor the distinguished civic design character worthy of the town’s central square.
The eastern portion of the scheme hasn’t even been built yet either, so we’re left with this Cork Streetesque delight facing the Court House probably until the next upturn.
And shock! – the cute little red brick is up for sale as Paul predicted before.
Otherwise a beautiful evening in Dundalk yesterday.
The lady who owned the house of this 1820s fanlight was out sweeping her path. Alas she thought the fanlight “has had it by now”, so a desperate act of persuasion swiftly ensued. Hopefully it’s now safe if she thinks it’s worthy of a photograph. She did however regret PVCing up the rest of the house, having sadly ditched all the original sashes. I continued nodding through gritted teeth.
The little charmer next door.
At least the sections have blown evenly. They almost look (poorly) designed that way :rolleyes:
@GrahamH wrote:
This is [Ulster Bank’s] Dorset Street branch in Dublin, so convincing a reproduction of the neighbouring Victorian gabled pair that it has fooled at least one inventory recorder of the street that I’ve encountered.
And fooled me 😮
Always one to put my hands up when in the wrong (yeah right), this early 20th century photograph posted by Griffin on P45 confirms matters somewhat emphatically as being otherwise…
However, the Ulster Bank pair for whatever reason still appears to have been entirely refaced and reroofed in the 1990s, with just the terracotta panels to the gables apparently retained. Without getting a good look at the neighbouring pair, it is possible there’s extensive spalling taking place judging by the first picture.
So it was a fair, if incorrect, conclusion to draw. And Ulster Bank are still turned on by reproduction!
Aha! Henry Aaron Baker’s illusive colonnade proposal. I’d never seen the drawing before. Very Belgraviaesque. Just think how striking and distinctive a thoroughfare Westmoreland Street would have been had it been built with these at ground floor level. Coupled with the originally proposed street width of 60 feet – in contrast to the executed 90 feet – it would actually have felt like a street rather than a something of an exploded square created to fill an annoying gap between two more important quarters. It’s also more likely that some parts of the terraces would have escaped demolition in the 20th century, the street being on a more intimate scale akin to Grafton Street. Presumably the three drawings were drafted showing what was achievable under three different costings: the colonnade the most expensive (also in terms of floor area), followed by the bottom proposal (executed), and the Tesco Value option in the middle, shorn of dressings to reveal an oddly modernist stripped Grecian-like affair.
It would also be interesting to consider what would have happened to the colonnades had they been built. We would probably have ended up with the same scenario as the Scottish with their peculiar arcaded shops from the 17th and 18th centuries, which inevitably were filled in by the Victorians and later. Presumably what scraps which might have survived on Westmoreland Street would now be considered ripe for restoration to the original format, even if disjointed from their context. How Dublin could have been so very different if they had been built and all survived – a real European injection into proceedings.
Which is why the failure to reinstate a piddling two shopfronts on D’Olier Street in the context of the truly enormous redevelopment granted inside and to the rear of the former Irish Times offices is all the more breathtaking in its failure to grasp the bigger picture. Such narrow minded thinking just makes my mind boggle (though this bag of Haribo Kiddie’s Super Mix may be playing a part). The granted procenium-like double shopfront can be seen in Stephen’s picture above.
Meanwhile, matters continue to fall apart on Westmoreland Street. The latest completely unauthorised shopfront with scrolling digital display, postering tacked about the windows etc etc…
But sure why would you bother when nobody else does either?
The Thai Orchid on the corner with Fleet Street not only has no permission for their recently erected signage on their fine Victorian premises, but in fact has no permission for the actual restaurant either.
The vulgrity that is Supermacs turns from arrogance to plain farce.
And yet this crowd were painted as the Irish success story of the century in the recent The Apprentice. Typical Irish approach – celebrate the small guy ‘beating the system’ and feck the greater good and any sense of corporate social responsibility. This of course was the classy O’Connell Street premises where the programme was made.
Enforcement: Zero.
Abrakebabra.
Enforcement: Zero.
Carrolls have got cute by sticking their postering onto the back of shelving units rather than onto the glass to avoid penalties. Like they’d receive them either way.
And as for the alcohol… The review of the Special Planning Control Scheme is due – I think they’re supposed to be done every six years. Aside from committing to actually enforcing the original one, there has to be more rigorous control of window displays, especially pertaining to alcohol.
And to cap it all off, this has been DCC’s latest contribution the whole way down the street, where surfaces were in need of renewal. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
This building on Lower John Street illustrates very clearly the 19th century trend of chopping out glazing bars from Georgian sashes and inserting more up-to-date sheet glass panes.
It also happened on this corner buildng nearby. Quite a few examples of this phenomenon in Kilkenny in fact.
The best gem encountered must surely be this magnificent early-mid 18th century house tucked away on Wolfe Tone Street. What a survivor.
It’s so old that its original chunky sashes were replaced in the first half of the 19th century (now heavily overpainted), but the old fashioned exposed and flush sash boxes were retained.
A wonderful Gibbsian doorcase. The joinery of the surviving fanlight gives an indication of the thickness of the original windows’ glazing bars.
And lastly, any photographic ramble around Kilkenny would not be complete without this delightful number on Watergate – generally regarded as a former Dutch Billy, originally with a double gable frontage. A diminutive ground floor ceiling height characteristic of such buildings too.
23/11/2008
Just some windows from Kilkenny.
A delightfully intact Georgian setting for the bridge and neighbouring Castle.
More disappointing is the scene further down. Oh dear.
At least most early 19th century sashes have survived in this case.
A magnificant array of shimmering cylinder panes.
A before and after scene next door, on a buildng with a trademark Kilkenny double doorcase.
An elegant gothick style window in a small cottage.
A grander Georgian pile nearby with all its windows perfectly intact.
Some charming cottages across the road with little single-pane sashes. Very posh.
Thanks for the pics Peter. I’d seen the new posts from the bus but couldn’t make out too much of the detail. They appear to be green versions of the Bull Alley/Iveagh Trust posts installed a few years ago off Patrick Street. Extremely nice and well detailed, but criminal if they are replacing historic posts, for which there is absolutely no justification. Do you remember if there were old posts along here Peter before these went in? Perhaps (hopefully) they replaced steel posts? Certainly I remember them on the other sides, as your picture proves.
There so very few enclaves of these small historic posts left in Dublin. I sincerely hope it is not the intention to give them all this Tidy Towns treatment. Dare I even mention it for fear of generating publicity, but Mountpleasant Square in Ranelagh/Rathmines has probably the oldest posts in the entire city, with elegant simple fluted columns and Sesame Street-like curved bases. These were gas lamps, are exceptionally rare, and may date from as early as the late 1820s. If they so much as contemplate coming near these with their sanitised heritage poles…!
And sadly the concretes on Kenilworth Road are already disappearing. I had a picture of a new galvanised steel pole going in beside a concrete post, but have lost it since. Also in Crumlin village, these distinctive – if gawky – classic suburban specimens are being replaced with more catalogue homogenity, more suited to La Rambla than a quaint village street. What a crying shame.
On the theme of an earlier posting or two here, good to see Frank McDonald picking up on the same trend in today’s Magazine.
DAME ST IN DISTRESS
VIEWPOINT: Dame Street, once one of the premier streets in the capital, has become noisy and tawdry. The sober financial institutions of the past have been replaced with a lot of badly spelled pubs, clubs and shops, writes Frank McDonald
IT’S DAME STREET on a Friday night/ Saturday morning. Everyone is out on the town and the junction with South Great George’s Street is heaving. A pair of bouncers in bow-ties stand guard at the entrance to Club Lapello, the local lap-dancing bar, scrutinising potential clients – mainly lads who’ve been drinking and want some extra entertainment.
In the eye-blinkingly bright Centra next door, a motley crew of revellers queue to pay for soft drinks and chocolate bars to keep themselves going, while down the street the footpath outside the loud, throbbing bars is choc-a-bloc with remarkably underdressed drinkers, some of them appearing to be “coked off their face”, taking cigarette breaks.
Last May, the Citi Bar – which exists only because it’s part of a licensed hotel – was censured for hosting a “Twisted Tuesday” promotional event for the Trinity College Students’ Union. The licensed trade’s watchdog panel, Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society (MEAS), found that the use of the term “twisted” on flyers was an incitement to excessive drinking.
Directly opposite, there are crowds outside O’Brien’s and the Mercantile Bar smoking on the footpath. A few doors away, a new bar called Le Cirk is pulling them into its fussily-decorated interior behind a mock-Victorian pubfront slapped onto a neo-classical building that dates from 1930; as William Deedes would have said, “Shurely shome mishtake”.
A bulbous stained-glass window projects from the rear on to Dame Lane and, above it, there are two floors with nothing but vents in the wall; why bother putting windows in the toilets when you can get away with this? Jay Bourke’s new bar, Shebeen, on South Great George’s Street is better; furnished with bric-a-brac, it seems tailored for the recession.
And when all the pubs with “special exemptions” and the sweaty basement nightclubs finally close their doors at 2am, there’s an unruly scramble for taxis – not just at the ranks, but everywhere. It’s the kind of mayhem you wouldn’t expect to find in a city that supposedly has more than 20,000 taxis, a throwback to the days when they were few and far between.
During the day, Dame Street is a different place; all you have to do to get a taxi is to put out your hand and signal one to stop. But for pedestrians, the environment is very unfriendly. The generally narrow footpaths are crowded and made even more so by obstructions such as the Citi Bar’s outdoor seating area, which occupies half the width of the footpath in front.
At the main pedestrian crossing close to the corner of Trinity Street, people have to wait for one minute and 40 seconds for the traffic to stop and then get just get 20 seconds to cross the street. It’s even worse at the South Great George’s Street junction, where the window of opportunity is reduced even further by motorists blithely driving through red lights.
Dame Street is one of the noisiest places in Dublin because of the huge volumes of traffic trundling through it. The street has also become tawdry, not just because of the proliferation of pubs but convenience stores and fast-food joints. Yet it is one of the longest stretches of the civic processional route from Christ Church Cathedral to Parnell Square.
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 there were reports that Lidl, the German discount grocery chain, was lining up to move into the failed Habitat store on College Green.
The pace of change was so fast during the boom years that it’s often difficult to remember what was in any premises previously. But we do remember that Club Lapello, for example, was once La Mezza Luna, an Italian restaurant. And if I’m not mistaken, the basement that houses Condomania in the same short block used to be The Underground, a cutting-edge music venue.
The Olympia Theatre has been more of a venue than a theatre for several years and, despite the welcome restoration of its canopy after being hit by a truck, the interior stinks of stale drink – a real indication that the bars have become more important than the stage. Some refurbishment work has been carried out, including new seats, but more is needed.
Across the street is Dublin’s most peculiar new building, widely reviled by the public. Part of the problem is that it seems cropped while the stone-paved plaza adjoining it is quite bleak. The front façade, topped by an elongated mosaic-clad half-dome, is particularly eccentric and aggravated at night-time by strip-lighting behind a glass screen, in lurid dayglo green.
There are some good things, such as the Mermaid Cafe and its no-frills sister, Gruel. And Nicos, of course. Behind its new opalescent windows, this venerable Dublin institution where nothing seemed to have changed for years was given a makeover during the summer that took habitués by surprise. The menu is the same, however, and there’s still a piano player.
Some of Dame Street’s tawdriness – particularly its Bacchanalian atmosphere at night – is a spillover from Temple Bar (or should that be Temple Barf, as the latest Lonely Planet guide to Dublin suggested?). God knows what the 18th and 19th century denizens of Dame Street would make of it today; when they were around, it was full of financial institutions and coffee houses.
There are still a few banks, notably the huge hulk of Sam Stephenson’s Central Bank, where Goths gather every Saturday and teenage skateboarders persistently ignore the official ban on their form of fun, and the old headquarters of the Munster and Leinster Bank (now AIB), where Charlie Haughey ran up his famous debt of £1 million in the late 1970s.
Guinness and Mahon, the merchant bank that “walking ATM” Des Traynor once ran, is just another branch of Permanent TSB today, while National Irish Bank has the luxury of a barrel-vaulted high Victorian banking hall – a feature the nearby Ulster Bank wilfully destroyed – and the turreted building once occupied by AIB is now Charlie Chawke’s Bank bar.
Jurys Hotel is long since gone, its elaborate mahogany bar installed in a pub in Zurich, and the building that stands on its site at the corner of Anglesea Street is now occupied by the Financial Regulator and his staff.
Just down the street, it was probably inevitable that Starbucks would open its first cafe here on the edge of College Green, Dublin’s great architectural set-piece.
What will transform the area is the proposed Lucan Luas line, which will originate in College Green and travel out west via Dame Street, Lord Edward Street, Christchurch Place and Thomas Street. With wider footpaths all along the route and restrictions on through-traffic, “quality of life” for people frequenting this stretch of Dublin should be immeasurably improved.
But we’ll have to wait for that to happen. According to the Railway Procurement Agency, work on the Lucan line won’t even start until 2011. By then, who knows what state the public finances might be in and whether the Government will welsh on this or other public transport projects. In the meantime, the likelihood is that Dame Street will become even more tawdry.
© 2008 The Irish Times
An interesting concept John. The design of the Monument also lends itself to such a site that can be approached from all sides. Whereas the historical association of the existing site is obviously an important factor, greater still I think is its strategic positioning at the entrance to the street, which warrants retention as is. The grandeur and focus it provides in heralding the city’s main thoroughfare is something that rarely fails to impress. With familiar landmarks we inevitably have a tendency to stop appreciating them, and the allure of change is therefore always great. But looking at O’Connell Monument from a more objective angle, you really do appreciate its grandeur and power in signalling an upping of the stakes in the urban hierarchy, i.e. it does a fine job where it is 🙂
Agreed about the Ulster Bank window, ctesiphon. The square proportions are indeed odd, but as far as I’m aware this simply stems from less than perfect draughting on the part of the architect, and that these windows were always comprised of two matching sashes. 1920s neoclassicism was rarely a stickler for detail…
After dark, the premises is transformed. Elegant, soft and understated describes the lighting scheme. Disregarding the clumsiness of the shopfront window lighting, the rest of the building is discreetly and expertly illuminated using a mixture of LED strips to string courses and cornices, and warm white, seemingly halogen, spots to the portico.
Eye-catching subtle variations in colour temperature.
Two shafts of white light on each side of the upper side windows are all that is needed to truly lift this facade.
A well considered use of light and shade.
Alas so much of this tasteful scheme is diluted by the garishly illuminated Irish Nationwide directly adjacent, for which there was of course absolutely no planning input.
The new back-illuminated lettering could not be any better if it tried.
All in all, one of the best reproduction designs ever executed in Dublin. The impact of this job in restoring dignity to one of the finest buildings on O’Connell Street, and the new boost of confidence it injects at this important introductory part of the wider street, cannot be underestimated. It is this very kind of improvement that the IAP first set out to achieve all those years ago. It may have come a decade later that expected, but it was worth the wait.
The underside of the balcony.
Before
After
The ground floor basement steel windows and railings following a spruce up.
Before
After
Before
After
This basement wall was the only granite to have survived the 1970s.
The glazing of the central window is surprisingly of single-glazed timber when a double glazed steel frame would be more appropriate. I had a disagreement about this with a friend outside it late one night – albeit faintly under the influence – personally I don’t think planners should have let this one go either, both from architectural and energy rating perspectives.
