GrahamH
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You just want to keep it Devin because it has steel windows 😉 😀
I would agree to a certain extent though in that it is by no means the most damaging building in the city; the western quays apartment stuff as far worse than Hawkins. Also as has been said, Hawkins is self-contained – it is so god-awful, and located in such a compact place as to make quite distinctive from everything around it. It’s almost acceptable as a token piece of trash 🙂
But I disagree that it is an example of its time, simply because it’s barely even architecture. It doesn’t attempt to be radically Brutalist, nor go in the opposite direction and have a more designed, self-conscious look like Gibney’s ESB, or Centrepoint. It is just a heap of concrete panels chucked together that just happen to form a building. Considerably more effort went into designing Ballymun.
As it is now, it’s something of landmark – it stands for everything that went wrong with the city in the 1960s and 1970s. It’s intimately associated with all the ‘old’ arguments, with The Destruction of Dublin, the call to arms in the 1980s to save the city – essentially pre-Celtic Tiger Dublin. As such, it is somewhat difficult to let go of it all, turn a corner and move on – something which will happen with the demolition of Hawkins House.
Wow – drool or what! 😀
That green is fantastic, a classic colour of the period. So refreshing to see a deviation from conventional white.
That casement detail is most unusual. Lovely gates too.Steel window manufacturing clearly was a huge industry from the early 30s on to cater for the huge demand of the growing suburbs. Found this great ad on the internet – the text is a bit difficult to make out, so an attempt at reproduction is made at the bottom:
A little twist and push – it’s open! Casement windows won’t stick in our weather. They always open easily. Casement windows are less work.
Steel windows are available in many designs. They are good-looking, durable, and inexpensive too. And because the steel bars and centre-pieces are slimmer than wood windows the light comes through; they are incredibly strong. Steel windows are used in schools, factories and all types of buildings…..😀
Not the best picture in the world, but you can just make out the decking at the bottom there in Dundrum. Wonder what the life of the material is with such heavy public use:
Likewise with the Boardwalk in Dublin – it can be slippy on frosty mornings, as it was the other day:
Well as some concession he did describe it as ‘a ghastly material’ 🙂
You’d wonder in big developments like Stephen St if these windows are made industrially by big structural engineering companies, as there’s probably no one left that makes them on a small-scale/domestic basis.
Even if you search on the internet there’s seemingly nothing in Ireland at all, and pretty much the same in the UK too.One of the last remaining steels in Crumlin village – had to snap it as there’s renovations going on that may result in its disappearance 🙁
There’s a great 1940s corner building on Sundrive Road built of that glowing orangey red brick with rustic concrete tiles on the roof. All fhe render detail and original steel windows which are more modernist that most in design are painted in black and it looks fantastic – almost hints of Tudor design in there such is the strange effect of the thin black glazing bars and imposing chimneys on the roof Must get a pic..
Yes unfortunately this is the case everywhere – it’s only the house that has fallen into disrepair that still has its original features, notably steel windows. Any house that retains them is ripe for ‘renovation’, i.e. the binning of steels.
Anyone see the repeat of Grand Designs tonight? A couple building a modernist-inspired home by the sea; they used PVC much to the initial disgust of McCloud, but they didn’t look too bad when installed as they were very geometric in design, with no evident opening parts:
Inside though they looked appalling with those ghastly big childishly chunky plastic handles – one of the worst aspects of PVC.
Overall it would have looked so much more elegant with steel though.Similarly an original Art Deco home was on the night before – and they ripped out the original steels! 😡 The PVC installed in its place was disgusting in this case.
One other time an enlighteded couple decided to replace all of the existing shot steel windows with new steel in a 1930s house. It was modest in size, similar to ones about south Dublin, and it cost them £20,000 sterling…..Which image shows these buildings J. Seerski – is it the first one? Are you sure these buildings aren’t actually here?
Fully agreed about Hidden Histories – the practice in this country of tossing down any old archive footage as wallpaper drives me insane; it’s always cherry-picked from the most irrelevant places and edited to ‘fool’ the public, in spite of the fact that the footage often speaks for itself as to its origins.
Saying that, as Cork City Hall is modelled on the Custom House and has pretty much carbon copy windows, it’s possible it was this building featured.
Only saw bits of the programme though, but wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Nelson’s Pillar cropped up a few times in the backgound. And as for the cropping of 4:3 images for 16:9 😡The gates were wide open the other day and there was a little stone building with sash windowss, located what seemed to be right in behind the gates but cetainly closer than Govt Buildings itself.
This fjp image shows the considerable distance between the main complex and the Kildare Place wall which is nearly half way up the facade of the Museum. Een here you can see there’s quite a clutter of structures in there:
http://fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/kf/aerial/002/government-building-aerial.jpg
What a different atmosphere Kildare Place would have with these two houses as featured in the Destruction of Dublin, demolished in 1957:
McDonald describes the replacement brown brick wall has ‘hideous’ – I think it has assumed a certain appeal at this stage…
Not that it shouldn’t be knocked in the morning of course; there’s great potential for this public space that should be realised.Impressive attempt Fergal, alas we’re rather conveniently out of propeller pencils at the minute. Found these at the back of the stock room though – congratulations!
Steel is a big problem – does anyone know of a single average domestic case where steel windows have been restored?
Even well-meaning owners probably cannot find steel restorers/manufacturers. White PVC is as good as gauranteed to replace 99% of steels. It’s the logical option for most people – move from the hell that is decaying steel frames to maintenance free PVC.Right now one of my relatives has a house with the last steels on the road, but PVC or aluminium are being considered as the only options. It’s not so much that these materials are being considered that’s unfortunate, rather that steel is not.
It isn’t even in the radar – the arguments of ‘why would you want more sticking and jamming and draughts and rusting and repainting’ are coming up.
It’s the material itself that is being criticised rather than the lack of maintenance of the windows. You might as well talk to a brick wall such is the anti-steel sentiment out there, which is understandable to a degree.Steels are also not the best advertisements for themeselves either – franky there might as well not be anything in the window apertures at all in many cases such is the frames’ uselessness in the heat and sound insulation departments. The fact that new, double glazed sealed models are available is of little consequence to most people unfortunately.
Well the GPO is currently being unwrapped like a giant Christmas present, and spot on schedule too. Just the frieze is peeking out at the minute and it looks magnificent.
Can’t wait to see the finished result – already the bone-white columns are glowing through the protective gauze.Well it’s going to be
shagging cold
and miserable tomorrow too, so it ain’t gonna look much better 🙂
Always liked the corner building there, strangly decent and sympathetic to the BoI for what seems to be a 70s? building.
Though compared with what used to be there – sob 🙁
@paddyinthehouse wrote:
St Stephens Green North, where part of the over-generous footpath.
This is a joke yes? Since when has any pavement in Dublin, let alone on the Green of all places been considered generous?!
If you refer to the paving that encircles the Green, this is the only element left that holds the place together as some form of a square. It cannot be touched.Good points about congestion]That this route also meets with aesthetic approval is merely an added bonus.[/QUOTE]
– the merely. It’s an important consideration 🙂
Pathetic in the grand scheme of a terrace – there is nothing more ridiculous, more ludicrous than a length of personalised fascia on one unit in a terrace. More than anything, this is what sums up people’s self-absorption when it comes to the built environment.
I dont take offence at you assuming that I am opposed to grey bleak unifrom council houses.
In which case I presume you are not opposed to Crumlin, considering its houses are for the most part neither grey nor bleak.
There is a world of difference between Crumlin and the likes of architecturally dismal Muirhevna Mór in Dundalk.By no means is uniformity desirable across the board in the built environment – variety is the spice of life, and this is what makes our streetscapes and buildings interesting. What irritates me about Crumlin is that like countless other schemes and developments, it was just allowed to fall apart because nobody could be bothered to keep it together.
lol – wouldn’t be surprise me though as it seems to be rather hot and steamy in there at the minute, completely jammers the three occasions I’ve passed at different times of the past two days. No one seems to want to go outside – suppose it is November…
It’s not as anything spectacular has been done here now – think this thread is getting everyone’s hopes up 🙂
They have only chucked a couple of tables and chairs out onto a concrete pavement after all:
Should be a delight to sit here during the summer in the dappled sun piercing through the plane trees, though you’d have to ask, why doesn’t the City Council install public seating here instead for the public to enjoy Foster Place, rather than preserve the area for the exclusive benefit of the customers of a retail outlet? If people want to bring their coffee out onto these seats then so be it?
The real, secret reason 🙂 everyone likes Foster Place is because it feels like London, not Dublin. The architecture is very much so that of London, as is the intimate historic atmosphere that is very rare in Dublin today; suppose the Castle Upper Yard would be one of the few other areas that still has this.
Imagine living in one of the two townhouses here – surely the most desirable residences in Dublin?!
Both of them were up for sale a few weeks ago.
The only problem with ‘developing’ or ‘expoiting this underutilised area’ is that this will spoil the very essence of the place – it is perfect as it is: quiet, secluded and largely unknown. Though the way Bank of Ireland dominate the space as if they own it with security cameras and delivery trucks needs to change alright. You always feel you shouldn’t be there, and are being watched…
Absolutely – there’s nothing like a well-placed burnt out car, stripped-back pebble-dashed (also preferably scorched) facades, and all round a sense of hopelessness and despair. Conforms to what’s been said above to a tee.
There is nothing bleak asdasd in uniformity, though this does seem to be the Irish mindset. There is nothing bleak in the order proposed above – quite the opposite in fact, in contrast with modern-day estates which are very much so cheerless places. Corporation schemes like Crumlin have a life of their own by virtue of the variety of house designs, street patterns and layouts, and the multitude of colours used. Coupled with imaginative street planting and the individuality of resident’s gardens, they make for thoroughly attractive places to live
I’m not suggesting that this is what you think asdasd, but your use of the term ‘bleak’ perfectly encapsulates for me Irish people’s attitude towards domestic architecture and ‘communal’ living. Everything is ‘bleak’ and ‘boring’ unless I get the the chance to tart my place up, and make it stand out from the crowd. Uniformity, order and coherence are not considered worthy concepts in this country any more; people are no longer content to live with a base unit to which they can merely add some of their own touches in the form of differently coloured front doors or windows. They have to make a ‘statement’ – smash out the front of the house and stick in a bay window, tack on a porch, change the windows to highlight my tastes, install a length of new facia the pathetic width of my plot to demarcate my patch from the plebs, install regal railings to the front, paint my house in what is an otherwise unpainted terrace…….the list goes on and on.
So few people seem to have an appreciation for the understated, the simple, for quiet elegance. Instead of being content with quietly being part of the crowd, people want to detach themselves from it at all costs. Of course this has always been the case down through time, but it’s never been as blatently evident nor as destructive in the built environment as today.
@Richards wrote:
These is a sense of neighborhood which I feel if often missing in new housing developments.There is a great mix of people from young couples to OAP]
Could not agree more Richards, this is perhaps the best aspect of Crumlin today. There’s such a mix of people there now that works so well, especially having the older generation around which is wonderful – such a refreshing contrast to the stilted demographic of newly established housing estates. There can be a real sense of community in places, with younger people looking after the older ones, and they in turn enjoying having kids around again etc.
Also Crumlin housing is prefect for modern needs with the mixture of two and three-bed houses. With the household population topping 1.4 million recently, a whopping proportion of this increase is amongst single and dual-occupier households, to whom the two-beds perfectly suit. The diversity in house size here further helps to enliven the area and attract different people.
Agreed about the room sizes, the sitting room in particular to the front is really tiny in the two-beds. But yes there is huge scope to the rear of these properties to extend, which is where all such extensions should’ve been confined instead of destroying the distinctive streetscapes with willy nilly, and by and large remarkably ugly, additions.@hutton wrote:
And if and when so desired in future times, the original can be reinstated without too much effort
So when exactly is this Revolution planned for hutton? Please give us a hint so we can cash in before the Morehampton Roads of the city vacate in favour of Drimnagh. I can see the estate agents’ blurb on original features already :p
Having a relative that sells dolls houses in the huge UK industry, I really cannot get over just how textbook dolls house design this building is – it’s a life-size miniature, surely a world first?!
Is there supposed to be a ? at the end of that just to be clear?
It was interesting to note the difference between the Dublin centres and Dundalk – in the capital security would pounce on you quicker than you could say cheese with a camera on their premises, but in Dundalk it’s a much more relaxed affair – they wander right past you wthout a care in the world! Similarly outside they just stroll aimlessly about, and even with the place crawling with secuity cameras – no interference.
Though maybe there will be after this 😉But really, all smart-arsing aside, it is astonishing how the developers were allowed get away with such monstrous rubbish which one sees the centre in its entirely – it is a series of malls in a giant shed that have been pasted over with signature ‘buildings’ of traditional fluff, all linked together with ‘bridge blocks’ – quite literally brightly painted dolls house architecture with Tegral slates, which fill in the gaps between the pastiche ‘historic buildings’:
I mean what self-respecting architect would have the audacity to install Barbie gates in all of these blocks? They must have put themselves in theme park mode, and treated the whole scheme as a big joke – how else could you hold yourself together?
In all seriousness, is there any difference in the architecture above, and that of this house?
They’re remarkably similar!
To take a breather for a moment and pop inside, the building is made up of two/three double-height malls linked together by rotundas – all smothered in acres of polished stone tiles:
Nothing overly innovative save some LEDs set into the floor at the base of every pier:
The vast orangery building is occupied on the ground floor by little more than a few stands, hence you have to walk a substantial distance to get to the centre proper:
To correct an earlier statement, there is some new public seating in this area in the form of a lavish leather suite of furniture, but this is very limited, with nothing in the main malls or rotundas where people will need to sit.
Overall, the centre is architecturally such a disappointment to the exterior, whilst the interior, beautifully finished, looks nonetheless rather vulgar with the vast acres of stone, and feels wasteful with fans blasting away to heat huge double-height malls – you feel like you’re in some sort of mini ecosphere as garethace has referenced to before.
As a commerical building, it hits all the right spots – the people love the exterior, with the local paper saying ‘…crowds of shoppers all amazed at both the range of shops and the stunning architecture.’ And the project manager saying the style was chosen to reflect the ‘historic buildings of Dundalk’.
Think this sums it up:
*trumpet fanfare*
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Marshes Shopping Centre Dundalk:
(Images © Walt Disney Corporation. All rights reserved)The main entrance to the centre from the town on Ramparts Roads:
You then turn a corner which reveals a monumental ‘streetscape’ façade, reaching as far as the eye can see. First on the cards is the noble Ramparts Palace, winter residence of Penneys and the Sweet Factory, which converts to an orangery for the summer months:
The beautifully proportioned windows of the State Apartments above:
(with frilly horns)A little further down one encounters the principal entrance block, which is a cross between an American colonial district courthouse, the town hall in a Hornby train set, and a one-off ranch in Cavan:
…with all important date-stamp in the pediment (okay tympanum).
The signature corner building at the very far end, apparently inspired by the celebrated work of Sylvanian Families, though to my educated eye I’d say there’s more than a hint of Playmobil in there too:
…especially in the neighbouring block:
