GrahamH

How fascinating, thanks very much for your extensive reply. Very interesting about the decendants of the Smyths!
It’s funny that the manner in which Edward followed Gandon round like a sheep was replicated with John and Johnston!

The early 19th century often comes across as so much more interesting a time to be working in architecture and sculpting – projects are much more varied in style and scale than the late 18th century – often ‘refinement’ commissions rather than grand set pieces as before; adding a new wing on here, an extension there, improving streetscapes with carved ornament and new bridges, statuary commissioned to fill empty spaces in public and private buildings, garden follies built, and of course a vast ‘building programme’ of Catholic churches and country houses post-1830.
Sounds a much more interesting time to be working as a prominant architect or artisan, and also why Johnston’s career/portfolio is so fascinating, esp as architect to the Board of Works – he crops up everywhere making well-considered changes to state buildings.

It’s sturdy alright, and ‘supports’ the upper floors well, but the colour is way off, and the offset door a shame.
The ‘oh well it’s modern, we have to have a contrast’ arguement is getting a bit tired by now I think – carried out on an astonishingly crass scale recently on one of the city’s most significant buildings without so much as a peep from anyone! Have a pic soon……

Sounds more like 500 houses with a concert venue on the side to me.

Cut n’ paste – was thinking just the same thing, not to mention how inappropriate too. How does an off-white box in any way reinforce the design of that building? All it serves to do is undermine it, reducing the upper floors to a bit of ‘fun’ decorative fluff from the ‘olden days’.
The very least that could have been done is a ground floor execution in brown to match that magnificent feature window on the first floor – even if it does look suspiciously just as recent…

You really couldn’t ask for a better arrangement – a quality, Irish-owned, long-established, reputable department store, with a generally strong architectural track record, expanding in a comparitively rundown area of the north inner city by acquiring a land parcel piece by piece in a fashion that did not result in dead frontages and derelict sites for years on end.
All in comfortable economic circumstances, and without the pitfalls (usually evident in the end product) of speculative activity.
AND offering the distinct possibility of righting an architectural wrong made four decades ago, the restoration of one of the city’s most distinctive buildings, and not forgetting a large stock of older buildings on Henry St and Middle Abbey St too.

Thanks for the picture Morlan – now he tells me :). It also shows a very interesting detail relating to the missing tower – note that the 60s frontage is much wider than that to the rear, as if it’s going out of its way to replace a previous structure. Whereas the vast white domed part didn’t exist in the 60s, the footprint of it would have been filled with another building, which seems to extend out almost exactly to the width of the end tower…..
It does seem a bit wider than the surviving end tower, but that could be down to any number of reasons. May or may not be significant….

Nice moment captured here by fjp 🙂

http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/city/0codeb/building-henry-st-arnotts.html

Breaking through the eastern side of the store would be as good as impossible – it features a magnificent collection of early 20th century ‘Dutch Billys’ that make Henry St what it is. They form one of the most impressive terraces in the city and are all protected:

Cutting through the 60s part to their recent facade on Middle Abbey St seems the only option – it’s a pity we may also lose what are excellent pieces of inflll, here and on Liffey St.

Extraordinary they paid €11 million for the Chapters building – they were taken to the cleaners on that one!
Surprisingly it isn’t protected as far as I can make out – nothing exceptional but the bay window and shopfront are fine pieces.

There’a great view of that Office shoeshop building from the Roches restaurant – it looks like a cardboard cut-out you’re so high up! Alas the windows are just too dirty up there to get any decent image of it.

Its style accorded with no know known style of architecture

You can say that again :D. A most bizarre yoke that doesn’t even seem to be derived from Islamic architecture as is perhaps initially suggested. Indeed the entire Arnotts building is very strange – the central parts of the wings are standard enough, but the use of towers and pinnacles and crenellations and all the rest of it is quite bizarre.
A big masculine Edwardian-style building with Eastern fancy bits stuck on top!

The terminating towers should definitely be reroofed as a matter of necessity – the building must be more clearly demarcated in that red brick streetscape. The central tower would certainly be more contentious, not least as consideration for the building ought to be just as important today as in 1896 or 1949.
I’d like to see it rebuilt, though it is difficult to make out its impact without seeing the colourings and textures of the materials used in the above depictions. Similarly the view above simply does not exist, so that doesn’t really count as any sort of credible indicator.

It will also have the Jervis plant room to compete with :rolleyes:

Vitrolite is an interesting example of ‘borderline heritage’ – both in terms of age and physical qualities it doesn’t quite conform with what we expect as worthy of conservation. It’s neither old enough, beautiful enough, or striking enough (even as a contemporary 1940s modernist building may be) to fit into the conservation model we’ve built up over the years.

At this stage though, I think more strident efforts ought to be made by local authorities in protecting vitrolite shopfronts where they survive, not least as there’s precious little of them left, especially on the east coast where they’re now almost non-existent.
Culturally it is equally important, if not always aesthetically – as they are one of the few remnants of an almost vanished Ireland, a time we’ve exceptionally little left to remind us of as frankly nothing was built during the 1940s and 50s outside of the housing sector.

Whilst a small shopfront need not hold up a town or village centre redevelopment, invariably vitrolite shopfronts are built onto earlier vernacular buildings, which combined are an integral feature of Irish urban areas, and what precious few survive ought to be safeguarded as much as is possible.
On there more clear cut issue of replacing these shopfronts with heritage models – there ought to be an outright ban on the practice.

Had to grin while watching that – just knew Praxiteles would be sitting at home fuming, shredding the sofa with his fingernails 🙂

The colour in Murray O’Laoire’s pictures is remarkably different – is it an undercoat?

Yes the ‘simply purple’ description sums up that part well, couldn’t quite put my finger on it before – the ‘radical’ colour merely helps detract from the fact that there’s little architecture in the elevation its pasted onto.
It’d remind you of the tin can of the Montrose Hotel with all those monsterous silver panels tacked onto it – these are just purple ones. And again the bricked part doesn’t gel in the slightest with it.

A bit shallow I know to be critical of a building when I can’t think of much to better address this site, but it’s a wasted opportunity for such an important location.
“96 student beds” explains a lot.

Good point for larger functions Paul.
But I’m thinking along the lines of the great machine that is Downing Street, with state rooms that are just a corridor a way from the private quarters (or No 11 as it is at present). It’s a hugely flexible space, allowing more efficent use of prime ministers’ time, and aids in getting more work done and/or easing the pressures of the head of government.

At the same time, I suppose we have to factor in that we already have a Downing Street here, just without the residential element – the Department of the Taoiseach at Govt Buildings, which includes the cabinet room, Taoiseach’s office, and all advisors and their offices on hand too, not to mention ‘state rooms’ of a sort downstairs – almost identical to Downing Street.

So it’s a public-private divide arrangement that looks set to be introduced – just it would seem to be a wasted opportunity were a public element not to be included in the new residence, and were it not to be at least somewhat distinctive (let’s avoid ‘iconic’ :)) in the public eye.
A new-build would be more preferable to an average period piece should it turn out to be such.

Anyone have even the slightest idea what this Steward’s House even looks like, where it is or when it was built?