GrahamH
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Wonderful pictures ake – thanks. Isn’t Christchurch Waterford simply sublime, interior and exterior.
More of this please!Interesting article, though hardly surprising. Even before the multiples were mentioned, it registered instantly which businesses weren’t coughing up. I suspect some of the mobile shops are similar, or indeed other businesses with no local connection. The fall in funds could be an explanation for the uncoordinated mess of Grafton Street’s decorations this year – much worse than I expected. The red bulbs have been lazily replaced in their entirety on some units with white lights, and liberally scattered on others. It’s very odd considering a substantial investment was made at least twice in recent years, which improved them considerably. Such a shame to see these fine, dinstinctive decorations slowly go down the tubes 🙁
The absence of the tackorama spectacular on South Great George’s Street was also notable this year.Depends on what you want to use your camera for really, archipimp. A powerful zoom lens can make all the difference to architectural photography, but the resulting bulky size in camera can be a bit much for casual occasions. And at least an element of manual control is highly desirable. In that respect, there’s a great mid-range of cameras out there if you don’t want to go the whole way – ‘semi-SLRs’ as it were with decent x12 lenses, high resolutions and decent colour fidelity etc. The above camera is in the Panasonic Lumix range – and just about fits into a coat pocket with a bit of a squeeze 😉
Here they are illuminated.
Watching over O’Connell Street’s resident public transport fleet:
A few months ago, probably following on from the GPO installation, new exceptionally powerful LED strips were installed on many, if not all, of the city’s bridges in place of the older ones. Because they are so intense, there’s thankfully no need for an ugly strip to be placed at the top of the balustrade too – now it’s just at the bottom. The shiny casings still need to be toned down though – why can’t they have a matt stone finish?
The orange on O’Connell Bridge contrasts very well with the white halogen bulbs of the lanterns above. The light also makes quite a statement on the inside of the bridge as viewed from the pavement.
The punters are impressed 🙂
🙂
Just few more pictures from 2006 for what it’s worth. (apologies for lack of tripod)
The St. Stephen’s Green Centre have gone all blue this year; a fleeting change in taste by management that causes a quarter of a million bulbs to be ditched…
Wicklow Street.
Note Weirs have no Chrstmas trees up again this year 🙁
Across the road, the former Brown Thomas facade is illuminated in candy pink by its current premises’ facade lighting opposite.
The tree at the southern end of Grafton Street is a fantastic improvement on last year’s.
A wonderful touch by the City Council has been the planting of holly in all the planters along the Boardwalk – a lovely seasonal touch that looks great in the morning sun.
A great idea – just a pity it couldn’t have been extended to the planters on O’Connell Bridge.
The designation as a protected structure doesn’t necessarily mean that all elements are listed Lotts – rather a Section 5 declaration on behalf of the local authority will decide what is and what isn’t listed, or more specifically what alterations would require planning permission, when an application comes in.
In the unorthodox case of Archer’s Garage, I’d imagine that everything but the basic concrete shell could attain permission for alteration without too much hassle from the planners, provided it was an ‘improving’ development. In fact, considering the corner tower is a dodgy replication, even a re-jigging of it to a more accurate form would no doubt be looked on favourably in Wood Quay.It is very odd that the tower which is composed in cast concrete, probably the easiest of all materials to work in and recast features with, was replicated so poorly – as evident in Paul’s before and after pictures:
Not that it’s a major blemish, but it’s the principal that counts. And the original did have a more aerodynamic stance to it, than the lumpen stump there now.
Overall the development adds a nice crisp splash of brightness to a rather soulless place, especially in the sunshine. The surrounding buildings integrate quite nicely, if the white garage a bit jarring against the cream stone walls. Suppose you can’t account for everything…
Yep – by and large this area is coming along very well with block infill development of a decent standard. Crucially, the buildings relate to their context appropriately, including the nice little 1950ish Corpo blocks across the road, which admittedly are probably for the chop soon if a decision is made not to refurbish them. The height, massing and stepping down is finely tuned for once.
Personally I don’t have a problem with cladding between floors if it’s executed well, such as with a refined ‘louvre course’ or similar – but certainly blank plastic panels, still unbelievably cropping up everywhere in window apertures, are a big no no.
As an aside, note how the 1950s concrete lampposts on that little street off Golden Lane help ground the awkwardly immature development into its context. Features like these make all the difference in helping to establish new structures, creating a sense of place and familiarity while the new builds find their feet and begin to generate an identity of their own that people can connect with. Alas, like everywhere else, they’ll more than likely just vanish when a gas main has to be rerouted
Yes it would be the second attempt to alter this tower.
It really is a hideous building though with that top-heavy capital. It is as if it’s attempting an ironic take on early 20th century skyscrapers, placing the wide pedestal base at the top instead.
Notably a new firm of architects haven’t been brought in that would ruffle STW’s feathers – rather a ‘fenestration company’ is to undertake the reordering. Surely they couldn’t undertake any major structural alterations?
The building was not particularly significant as an architectural entity, but seems to be a good example of an institutional building from its time, which coupled with its historical/social significance and pleasant appearace, probably made it worthy of protection. It could perhaps also have had a few interiors of note such a chapel.
As for Archers, here’s before:
And after:
Complete with delightful aluminium windows in place of the original steel :rolleyes:
At least the ground floor glazing works quite well. It seems the roof is being used as a roof terrace to try and claw back some use for the original building.
It’s a small world Morlan 😀
(phew – good thing I didn’t say anything nasty ;)) Nice progression from day to night.
But really. even the amount of beeping horns is nothing short of a joke – I’ve never come across the city quite so aggressive before. Unless we just don’t notice that element when ‘live’, whatever about everything else.
low-lying, suffocating menace
Perfect description. Unfortunately.
Even as things stand The Royal Dublin’s closed Aer Lingus premises, shuttered Carlton cinema, dead frontage of derelict site, and the substantial boarded up Fingal offices present a bleak vista on the upper street, and that’s not even counting the derelict Findlater House across the road (though work here is hopefully to start shortly).
Half of Upper west has essentially become a well-paved wasteland of bus stops and yet more bus stops with their enormous crowds of patrons standing aminlessly about at peak times filling the entire pavement from front to back.Nobody’s fault in particular just at the mnute, but swift movement must be made to resolve these properties’ issues.
The new Chrismas lights erected on every lamppost on the street are pictured here – they alternate from white to blue frames between the posts, the blue ones featuring the odd flashing light.
A clever concept, if the units hardly elegant. More classical, vertical strips in line with the architecture of the posts would surely have been more appropriate. A relative rather aptly described them to me as whimsical ice cream cones – more suited to a summer festival than Christmas.
It must be noted that there is a world of difference between the modest, sensitive approach taken here, and the overtly facadist route adopted all over the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, where elaborate hotel, bank and department store elevations were retained as cloaks for large office developments.
By contrast in this instance, the buildings by and large retain their original uses: independent shop units as first built remain intact, original shopfronts still stand in situ, some stores traditionally pierce upwards to the first floor, and the modest high spec offices upstairs correlate with the city-wide pattern of usage for upper floors of modest buildings like these.
Given this terrace may not have contained anything or little of note inside as Devin suggests, what has been carried out, I think, is an honest and well-intentioned reinvigoration of a collection of buildings that forms a large chunk of a traditional Dublin streetscape.
Yes, the construction process was brazenly facadist, but the end product is not, relative to what we usually associate with this form of development. Coupled with the retention of the buildings closest to Grafton Street, and a largely conserved usage overall, this is a project that is at least in the upper echelons of the facadist concept.Thanks for that jdivision. The ground floor around there does look decidedly ancillary in nature, hence the hesitancy earlier – hardly the most inviting of entrances is it? And the mock-Victorian doorcase is embarrassingly poor. At least go full-on contemporary if you can’t be bothered doing a decent restoration or reproduction.
I see where you’re coming from on this Phil – really :). For example part of the M&S terrace on Duke Street makes me cringe every time I pass it by; the buildings’ silly, brightly painted facades almost deliberately invoking the rage of the conservationist – drawing one’s eye to their falseness, and playing tongue-in-cheek on the notion of a depthless, charade city, where commerce utilises historic stock for purely marketing ends.
The issue here really boils down to the question of how development takes place: over what length of time, and to what extent, i.e. is it more ‘honest’ when a terrace of buildings organically merges and changes use over say ten or twenty years, rather than a strategically planned alteration/demolition to the substructure?
Probably the best test of this question would be the former The Irish Times offices on D’Olier Street – a terrace of Georgian buildings progressively merged over the best part of a century, and into what has to be said to be decidedly mediocre and rather dingy accommodation which is essentially unworkable in the modern world for office use. So is this state of affairs more ‘honest’ than say if the substructure had been rebuilt to modern standards (as indeed some of it was in the 1950s)? It’s a very tough call to make – I’m not sure I know the answer.
Indeed had these units not been merged and were still single properties, they’d almost be unworkable for the residential units currently proposed, given access problems to each. Ironically, the merging of the properties has made them more usable in the modern world for a traditional use (residential), than had they remained as the Wide Streets Commission designed with individual proprietor’s accommodation overhead.
Or is say Brown Thomas/Switzers more ‘true to form’ because of its relatively modest incremental development, in spite of its now thoroughly modern interior?
I do agree that as far as is practicable, older buildings ought to be protected from what’s often termed ‘mega-structural’ developments like these – especially if they have original interiors intact, however modest. Albeit a rather extreme case, Greenes bookshop is a good example of how it’s possible to make use of traditional interiors in a retail environment. I’m sure there’s more workable, chic examples I can’t think of off-hand! In the South Anne Street case it’s impossible for us to assess the merits of the scheme given we know little of what was there before. It is only in that respect I think it is a job well done – what can be presently observed.
oooh not bad at all Seamus. Certainly on the right track. When originally taking it it looked so obvious, but in hindsight it’s quite a random picture isn’t it. We’re definitely looking up here anyway…
Just looking at the windows here, they’re oddly similar to the new South Anne Street development.
Absolutely. Also a court order to rebuild is based principally on the premise of a structure being of architectural significance. Buildings that may have little or modest aesthetic appeal and are protected on the basis of, for example, social, historical or technical merit, are the biggest losers when a demolition takes place; rebuilding then is even more futile than cases of architectural destruction.
The properties closest to Grafton Street are entirely stock brick.
These have since been occupied by Links.
The offices upstairs are presumably accessed via this fine new entrance fa
10/12/2006
One of the last mass-assembled sites in the city has finally begun to give something back to the city with the restoration of a terrace of buildings, or more specifically a facade retention, on South Anne Street.
Apparently the site assembly – of which this terrace is only one part – was begun 18 years ago by developer Paddy McKillen. This is what we have been presented with for many years, within yards of Grafton Street.
http://www.fantasyjackpalance.comThis is today.
These images were taken a few months ago, and most of the units have since been filled. The class of tenant is quite niche in character, in line with a Sunday Business Post article which cited the developers as being extremely particular as to who leased their outlets. London jewellers Links now occupy a unit to the extreme right, along with various fashion stores. The standard of window display along here as a result is imaginative and very striking.
Most Victorian/Edwardian shopfronts have been retained.
And look exceedingly elegant in a black eggshell finish.
Beautiful. The curved glass is very striking.
Also a muted use of signage.
Unfortunately I don’t think the contemporary fronts work nearly as well – clumsy and flat, and stuck-on in appearance.
An opportunity lost for contemporary to make its mark.
The brickwork has been cleaned, tuck-pointed and all windows presumably (accurate) reproductions – painted in SHOCK dark grey:
The stock brick in the upper course however looks very strange, and not very appealing. Perhaps this was inserted when the red brick was so dirty as the only type of brick that would match.
Unfortunately maximum fines are rarely issued by the courts, hence it’s questionable if a €5 or €6 million fine would make any real impact on the benefit derived from building, for example, new-build apartments in the reconstructed shell…
Any fine certainly should take account of this.Incidentally, a proposed protected structure is defined as:
“a structure in respect of which a notice is issued under section 12(3) [composing a Development Plan] or under section 55 [altering a Development Plan] proposing to add the structure, or a specified part of it, to a record of protected structures, and, where that notice so indicates, includes any specified feature which is within the attendant grounds of the structure and which would not otherwise be included in this definition”.
8/12/2006
Developer faces fine of €13m
Probe underway after early morning convent demolition
A developer has illegally demolished a 19th century convent which was in the process of becoming a listed building.
Homebuilders Kimpton Vale Ltd razed the building on November 5, just two weeks after Dublin City Council began the process of adding the Presentation convent in Terenure to the Record of Protected Structures (RPS).
3/12/2006
Watching the new Dunnes Stores development on Henry Street going up over the past year, it became increasingly apparent through the scaffolding that the window courses were substantially different to that of the host terrace. Similarly the ground floor was punching way above the established shopfront line.
And now we know why 😮
Even watching the steel frame going up back in the summer, deep down I just knew a revised application had been submitted in place of the initial proposal for a facade retention of sorts.
What has been allowed through on the entirely historically intact east Henry Street is nothing short of a scandal – without question the worst planning decision made for a city centre commerical street in at least the past five years. It beggars belief that something like this can still happen in 2006.
Not only is Henry Street defined by characterful post-1916 red brick buildings and terraces, this was also the longest and most impressive unified commerical terrace in the entire city centre. Unlike Upper O’Connell Street’s terrace of monolithic buildings, this redbrick streetscape had a much more initimate modest character, which coupled with the terrace across the road lent Henry Street its distinctively warm and pleasant atmosphere. To have this shattered by the most gharish, intrusive, brutish box clad in wetroom tiles of tacky four star hotel proportions is stomach churning. And not only this, the enormous, greedy display windows immediately suck the life out of the primacy of Arnotts on the streetscape, which when coupled with the distraction of the new street corner here, is going to erode the character of Henry Street even further. Not that watered down neoclassicisim is the last word in identity generation, but its replacement with utterly anonymous ‘anywhere’ architecture merely adds insult to injury. At least on South Great George’s Street the same architects had a curving facade and muddled streetscape to play with – but here they’ve merely applied the same formula, sandy Pritt Stick tiles included, to a regimented streetscape. It couldn’t be any more incongruous if they tried.
ABP would surely have chucked this out the window given half the chance. Bedazzled by the allure of a major retail player boosting their concept of a ‘northern quarter’, DCC clearly must have been drooling on the pages too much to even notice what was actually proposed. And this in the face of the Development Plan waxing lyrical about reinforcing streetscapes, promoting sensitive redevelopment, creating and preserving identity, seeking to protect older buildings of merit that are not protected structures etc etc etc.
Shame on this decision 😡
