GrahamH
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Paraic White, chairman of the Railway Procurment Agency (in charge of planning of LUAS & Metro etc) was speaking for a good half hour on Today with Pat Kenny this morning, explaining quite credibly the 4/4.5 billion or so proposed cost of the metro, and the disparity with Barcelona etc.
For a start, the actual cost of it’s construction and land acquisition is 1.7 billion. The remaining 2/3 billion or so is a vast contingency fund, as well as covering other elements. These being insurance, VAT, inflation, the value for money over the 9 years of construction, spiralling property values and a myriad of other costs.
The figures touted for Barcelona exclude land aqusition costs (suffice to say a major element),& the equivilant of their local authority designed it themselves, and then commisioned, thus saving 100s of millions here alone.
He also quite openly said that labour costs and constuction costs are substantilly higher here than in Spain of elsewhere.
Above all, and most importantly, he says this is an absolute, consise, and realistic projected cost of the Metro, including every concievable contingency and potential problem. For once he says, a State body is accuratly predicting the cost of a major project, and is hopeful that as a result it may actually come in under budget.
He was higly credible and practical throughout the interview, no crap, and was incitefully interviewed by Pat. Well worth a listen, audio download available on the RTE website. (first item on programme)
It was part of a massive Corpo plan in the 80s to, well franky, demolish the entire north west of the inner city. Plans included 2 14 storey office towers, a ‘leisure complex’, a 400,000 sq foot shopping centre, which the ILAC is, well 250,000 sq feet of it, and various other ludicrous schemes that eventually came to nothing.
Ok, latest developments.
All hell has broken loose on the site to get it ready for Patrick’s Day. There’s a flurry of activity at the base of the Spire, in contrast to the workerless site it had become over the past couple of months.
The cast bronze base is now fully installed around the base, the gap between it and the Spire that allows light to rise up now clearly evident.
Stainless steel bollards of varing height (and wrapped in plastic) are being installed right now (Monday 14:00) about 3 metres from, and in circumference of, the base of the Spire.
I didn’t see any paving slabs being laid, as I was rushing past, but presumably they are stacked up somewhere on site.
There are no floodlights on any of the corner buildings to illuminate the sculpture, although wiring infrastructure may well be in place (again, I was rushing)
The beacon is still on top.
Will the tip be illuminated on time?
More to the point, will the whole site be finished on time?!
Apparently most of the city’s lampposts were made by Stanton Concrete, based in the UK, who also manufactured the thousands of lampposts around every great urban area, esp London.
You can see it’s name stamped on the bases of a lot of the posts around Dublin’s inner suburbs, Rathmines etc.
Trying to find out more…
Buildings that half heartedly use curves etc are just saying look at what we can do. At least a building that looks like a giant Easter egg is making a distinctive statement.
Above all, starkness and ‘going the whole way’ only works for me, whether it’s an almost clinical modern building, or the other side of the coin, a true and pure classical building. I detest watered down architecture, ie, early 90s post modernism or 80s Victoriana.
I don’t like curves in tall buildings. Just me. It makes more of a “look at what we can do with our high-tech materials” statement than an architectural one.
Still, very snazzy.
The problem of not cleaning buildings in this country is also hugely damaging architecturally. Look at the hundreds of buildings on the like of Camden St, even
O’ Connell St where the brickwork is simply painted over to hide the dirt. Admittedly, all done in the 70s and 80s, but it is appalling looking, esp in contrast to ‘what could be’, ie if the paint was removed and the brickwork restored.But the main issue is that it is only older stone buildings that are deemed as needing to be cleaned in this country, any thing new(ish) is considered, well, new! Regardless whether its manky or not.
On a related issue, the OPW are to sell their 1 acre yard/warehouse site in the centre of Dublin off Ely Place/Baggot St. It’s expected to raise 15 million at auction for the state, to be used in the refurbishment of local Garda Stations. Yet again, prime state assets are being pawed off for political purposes, no money for refurbishments, sell off some prime real estate now, instant cash, and stuff future generations.
Why can’t the City Council take over this land, 1 acre remember, and develop it for much needed social & affordable housing. At a time when Dublin is sprawling like wildfire to Cork, Galway and Dundalk, and when there is a dire need for building land in and around Dublin for the CC to build upon, it is a disgrace, nonsenseical & crazy to be selling this land off speculatively.
Correction, there’s actually 4 concretes left on College St, and 2 outside Irish Times, hence 6 left in the city.
I completely disagree, considering the absolute minority of ‘modernist’ buildings on the street, and the otherwise dignified ‘historic’ and classical character of it, it is in the street’s interests to fully restore it to a uniform style.
I’m not being typically sentimental, revisionist and blah, blah. Most buildings on O’ C St are nothing spectacular, but as a whole, combine to create a sense of scale, and most importantly, character and history. To break up these uniform terraces with the likes of the shoeshop building and Fingal etc, grossly undermines the effect the other buildings create.
To have starkly modern street furniture and paving will contrast spectacularly with older buildings, and to have that effect the whole way down the street would be truly fantastic. In my view, it is imperitive that the current modern buildings on the street (only about 5% of the bldg stock) be refaced in a traditional way with appropriate Victorian brickwork and stone dressings, no watered down 80s crap and uPVC. This can be achieved through simply mirror imaging the building next door, or building individually.
Again, I’m don’t wear rose-tinted glasses(indeed no glasses at all), it is simply in the street’s, and the city’s interests to rebuild appropriatly. Faithful replicas are laughed at due to the inundation of pastiche, and architects obbsession with post-modern, and is simply immature. (Not that I’m saying you are Greg!. Heaven forbid!)
And proper facades for Fingal bldg, Dublin Bus, Penneys (actually they can get out altogether) and shoe building…
It’s not really a case of ‘going Victorian’ in that those silver column lamps are very much so a staple of Dublin, a symbol of the city at this stage. Their instatement has to be welcomed from the point of unifing all lighting in the city centre, and enhancing it with quality architectural street furniture. (although most were painted green originally, not silver)
Sorry, I mean the huge stock of Victorian cast iron lamposts etc. Looking at pictures of the city centre from as late as the 1920’s, they show literally hundreds of iron lamposts & lanterns, hundreds, where are they all?
I also think the concrete ones were removed in the late 80s, I have a pic of O’ Cll Bridge from the early 80s and they’re still there, but yeah, where have these all gone/are going, pubs aren’t quite as willing to take on 3 ton columns as well!
Most with 70’s steel heads, I can see them on the Rathmines Road as I type! I’ve seen the ‘mini versions’ attached to Nelson’s Pillar too.
Where did the city’s vast stock of lanterns, columns and brackets dissappear to from the 30’s onwards? Literally thousands were removed from the city centre alone, I’m not critisising, it happened in every city in Europe, (albeit on a smaller scale) just wondering where they all went as they wern’t melted down for the war, did they go into landfill, sold abroad, or hopefully above all, are they all rusting away in vast vaults and scrapyards of the City Council, ripe for restoration and re-instatement? Dream on…
I agree, the whole area is now windswept, almost barren, with no life or colour.
I forgot about the lamposts in front of Irish Times, may be sure they’ll be gone in a few weeks too. Their re-instatement the whole way along the quays could work quite well, with bright white bulbs installed.
College Green is shamefully lacking in any lamposts at all, with the exception of 2 posts, the kind that were used to light shopping centre car parks in the 70’s! Dame St also has nothing, just crappily floodlit from above, as is Nassau St, Westmoreland St and of course
O’ Connell St. Structural freestanding lamposts are so important in urban areas, they enhance an area’s architecture, creating contrast and a sense of scale.I think that simply the effort that people have to go to to pay the London charge is putting people off, rather than the amount. I know it’s only a trip to the local shop but people are oh so very lazy…
I agree, the Conor Faughnan types need to wake up to the fact that things need to get worse for motorists before public transport (if ever) improves.
Does anyone have any idea what those fat middle-aged men employed by CIE, who stand on tracksides and platforms, gawking at every train going by, actually do? Does CIE recieve charity tax exemption status? Clearly it must. Perhaps these are the ‘architects’ of Connolly’s terminal.
