GrahamH
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The day the go-ahead for RDH redevelopment came through, the planning application was hastily taken out of the front window, but now its back up again for some reason…
The total no of extra rooms is 61, and ALL of the public areas are being gutted incl restaurant, bar, reception etc
Its interesting that all of these plans were only drawn up on the back of the Gresham’s refurbishment, they probably would’nt have happened otherwise.
Hate to be pedantic, you’re loving it!
But you’re correct, Aer Lingus was on the RDH site, with Penneys and, wasn’t it a bookstore or something, on the derelict site.
I stand corrected (and not for the first time)!
I’ve heard loads of the Aer Lingus premises but never seen it, anyone have a picture?
Oooooh, whatever could it be?
Must have got some strange looks taking a picture of a hole, its bad enough even glancing at an excavation without sixteen CC ‘workers’ standing around, staring at you like you’ve three heads.Yes, beautiful granite kerbstones are being laid everywhere along it’s route, including the top of Earlsfort Terrace and Abbey St.
The part I’m most interested in seeing materialising is the Harcourt St section, arn’t the cable’s brackets to be attached to the Georgian terrace?
Going to be a major feat of so called ‘sensitivity’, something I’ve confidence in being executed, judging by the quality of all the LUAS works.Hopefully, although the plans for the new office dev is so predictable. We shall await the outcome.
I passed down the Connolly end at 6 this evening, and had to divert to the other side of the pavement as a man was peeing up against one of the green columns of the bridge that crosses the street, in broad daylight.
Some things never change…(Suffice to say, don’t walk near there again)
The IAP is very comprehensive but remember, it was published in 1998! 5 years ago! And it was compiled 6 years ago!
And nothing has been done, other than the erection of a 120 metre pole.All of the delapidated Georgians on Parnell Sq are mentioned in the IAP, as is Parnell St, again nothing done.
Likewise with O’ Cll St, and is’nt Marlbourgh St included – like it would make a difference if it was.
And as for poor Westmoreland, Europe’s only motorway with traffic lights…
Tree planting here, and paving etc could make it beautiful, a perfect visual launch-pad for O’ Connell St.I mean there are attractive established trees there at the moment, and are all evenly spaced and would fit into new paving just as well as new trees.
Esp considering the new trees around the Green ran into something like 2 million euro. (not that I begrudge them, they’re fantastic)Any news on the internal lighting anyone?
I’m worried I’ll be dead & buried before its finally installed.Simple, quality brick-clad facades with sash windows, and the optional extra of stone dressings & pilasters etc, are exceptionally cheap compared with any modern glass-clad/ granite-clad/white concrete-clad etc building.
Most, if not all of the bldgs at the north-western end are simple, decorative brick structures anyway, as I presume the Aer Lingus bldg was that used to be on the now derilect site, and the same with Dublin Bus site – Gilbeys being the marked exception.
The RDH, aside from its nasty projecting gold aluminium windows – its brick cladding, as a material, works well in the context of the whole terrace, whatever about its colour & quality.
I think that any material used, other than brick or quality cut stone (to reflect the AIB next door) in the ‘refurbishments’, will invade onto the terrace.
Remenber, even in the progressive 30s, the Carlton was still built in a classical style using traditional materials to fit into the street, albeit an interpreted classicism, and works really well.One positive aspect the RDH’s redvelopment is the hotel’s expansion, which should help increase trade at the northern end. It is planned to add an extra storey to the building, although it will be set back from the street parapet line and invisible from st level, the whole entance lobby is to be gutted, as is I think its coffee shop, and as far as I recall the plans include a whopping increase in its bedroom numbers.
And how is it, tell me, how is it, that piles & piles of commercial waste, including the steaming remenants of Big Macs and the like, are allowed to be tossed out onto the sides of all city centre streets at 3.30/4.00pm everyday?
It has to be the most ludicrous aspect to this city (and in the overall scheme of things, thats pretty major)
Can you just imagine this happening on the Champ Eleyses, or Oxford St or Trafalgar Square?
When I pass it all every evening on O Cll St, Westmoreland, Nassau & so forth I’m absolutely mortified at the idea that even being Irish accociates me with this type of crap.It is the most disgusting practice that the city could possibly execute on itself and sends out the worst signal to all tourists and visitors.
And as Greg F says, THE SMELL!!!
It is a bit clinical alright, esp the clean-cut circles around the tree bases, but the sheer scale of this quality material far outweighs this.
I see that already the paint is chipping off the metal yokes on top of the new bollards, and the gravel at the tree bases is thinning out considerably.
Will the trees on the western LUAS side be replaced? Surely not.
Wow! You have a version that you have to PULL out of the attic?! Lucky you! I’ve to make do with a feckity print split over 2 pages in a book, with christchurch being half the size of a baked bean! (or any bean for that matter)
(I don’t know the answer to your question)
Smells eminating from fast food shops are actually considered in planning permissions, although I’ve yet to come across a fast food chain that has had an EIS carried out.
Even harsh flouresent lighting spilling out through windows is taken into condiseration.How are Mc Donalds and Burger King etc on the st then? Well as everyone knows, Ireland did’nt have a planning system in the 70s.
I can’t belive the arrogance of that chain, that they flaunt their ‘wares’ blatently through their expansive windows without the slightest consideration for the st, esp after the controversy over it’s opening.
Now I’m not one to be easily offended, nor a typical ‘Liveline, its a disgrace’ contibuter, but an exercise in a little more modesty woundnt go amiss.
Suppose they would actually help matters here wound’nt they!
I’m glad I’ve now cleared up in my own mind what I’d like to see on the st, and in what areas, thanks to the many heated opinions, (although admittedly I’d still like to see sash windowed bricked facades above anything else, no elaborate follies though), I am apparently after all ‘of the old school’- I’d like to think of the enlighted variety.
What exactly is the ‘new school’ then?!?
.Carrolls Factory, Dundalk
.BOI, Baggot St
.RTE Television Centre, Radio Centre & Administration Building(Miesien fan)
You know what, the many good points from ‘your side’ has actually swayed me slightly.
I have come to my final conclusion that O’ Connell St has always progressed.
Gardiner created a unified composition, which the Wide Sts Comms adapted sypathetically for commercial uses, then the Victorians came along and wreaked havoc on the street with their ‘feature’ buildings, then the 20th century came and bombed the backside out of half of it, resulting in a fantastic opportunity to restore some architectural unity to it, which was achieved to a degree in the 20s & 30s.I have been swayed to agree that a more modern, nonetheless sympathetic, facade is appropriate for the RDH and Eircom simply due their lage, expansive facades, where the potential exists to create landmark buildings at the upper end.
However, looking at Dublin Bus and Schuh again this morning as I was passing, there is absolutely no excuse for modern facades on these. Both are very narrow buildings, both exist in entirely brick clad and older terraces, and both exist in the lower, or near the lower unified part of the street.
Building modern here smacks of sheer arrogance, that ‘we must make a statement’.Building ‘replicas’ in the areas I mention is not a theme park attitude, if that were the case, is Harcourt St a theme park? Or the east side of Stephens Green? Or the south and west sides of Mountjoy Sq? Or all wooden Victorian shopfronts going up in every town and village across the country?
Building ‘old’ as it were, in strictly limited areas to either architecturally or historically unify an area is not a bad thing.I think its very interesting though, that if Gilbeys, once one of the city’s finest Victorian buildings, that existed on the Fingal site, was demolished today, there would be absolute uproar over the issue and an immediate order would be slapped on the developer to rebuild it faithfully, down to the last doorknob. And yet, because 30 years pass by with Fingal in its place, the whole idea of rebuilding now is completely laughed at. Indeed, such is the extent of this irony, that it is entirely likely that if its owners proposed to built Gilbeys now, it would’nt even get planning permission!
Just found out that Carrolls Gifts and all of it’s terrace has been protected since at least 1991, long before its PVCs was installed upstairs.
And I also see that the GPO have lodged an application to modify the Princes St entrance to the building. But the sheer ignorance of An Post, they have posted the application on the HENRY ST side, of the building, so anyone seeing it couldn’t be bothered to go around to the other side to inspect the development. But above all, its posted as high as is possible on the lower sash of the window so the average passerby can’t read it. I could barely make it out, other than interventions to the exterior stonework and modifications to the 30s interior lobby.
WOW, I touched on a vein there!
Eh, everyone, pastiche as defined in the Oxford dictionary as meaning a bad imitation of something, you seem to be mixing it up with ‘replicas’ as it were, or anything not modern.
Anyway, to be honest I’d hate to see Victorian follies on the street, I said it in haste.
But it dosn’t sway me in the slightest from having at least reserved redbrick dressed stone facades, in keeping with most of the street.I agree Paul that the RDH end is a shambles and always has been, but the rest of the st isn’t & wasn’t. And considering that the southern end is the most unified part of the st, it makes it even more unaccepable for the likes of the schuh building to be butting in.
I ‘surveyed’ the street today, and looking at the schuh bldg, it is unbelivably out of place.
Out of the total of 73 properties on the street, (I’m sad enough to have counted), 65 are ‘historic’, ie pre 1930, 2 are tiny brick clad stuctures at the top end, unnoticable, and the remaining six are the nasty usual suspects, Pennys, Bus, Fingal, RDH, Eircom and Schuh.
As I say, there is no architectural unity to the RDH end, but there would be a historic unity if the buildings mentioned weren’t there, nothing spectacular would prevail, but a sense of character would.Although frankly I’d prefer modern structures on the St any day if new ‘sympathetic’ structures built were to be treated in the manner the present ones currently are.
Most of them are in the most appaling condition above street level, with a century of grime on them, and most of the windows look like they haven’t seen a coat of paint since the Rising. And as for the invasion of PVC!
Carrolls ‘Irish’ gifts beside Ann Summers looks like they had their PVCs installed a mere 1/2 years ago, are they not banned on the st?I’m so disappointed so few people agree with me.
This argument really has nothing to do with conservation or recreating times past etc.
It is simply about how the street LOOKS, its physical appearance, and put frankly, it would look better with appropriate ‘historic’ facades.
I’m not suggesting some straight-laced Georgiana, we could play around with designs, what about a wonderful Victorian gothic facade for the RDH, or a high Victorian front like Gilbeys used to have on the street and like Jurys on College Green for Bublin Bus, or even simple Regency buildings with brown stock bricks and granite corner stones.
The street could be so beautifaul.
This is not recreating the past, it is simply using architectural styles, just like Art Deco is a style, or Arts & Crafts is a style, or modernism, or post modernism, or neo-classisism or gothic and so forth.But above all, why can’t you all just see that with the rectification of a few buildings on the street, its entire architectural unity would be restored, creating a distinctive place in the city, with a sense of character. Would you not like to see a unified composition in our city, a beautiful civic space with a definite charm and instant appeal as an historic place, an urban space on a par with any other European city?
Making a programme about it, I and others spent days and days in the place, shooting virtually every building, researching them and the place as a whole. What struck me so sharply was the amount of effort so many people went to over the generations, over two & a half centuries to create a unified, dignified architectural composition and civic space, esp in the 1920s, and then the whole effect was to be shattered in the space of two decades from the 70s.
It is imperative and our duty today to restore that composition as some redress for the terrible mistakes made.
