GrahamH

Reading the Development Plan, as with probably every town in Ireland it is the LA’s aim to preserve and consolidate the existing town centre. It could be argued that the The Marshes is actually in the town centre – just ‘blocked’ as it were by Francis Street which gives another impression.
When the Long Walk opened, the Celtic Tiger just hadn’t taken off as expected – never in a million years would it have been predicted that British multiples would be setting up left right and centre around the country.
Hence the Long Walk was only built to cater for local businesses, with a couple of national brands to boot – all tiny box units with no capacity for larger stores.

So I can see the appeal and genuine need for building a new centre, but it is a heck of a waste of development on many levels with the Long Walk – built in the lull before the storm.

As for the new centre, admittedly you cannot help but be charmed by the design, in that all the ‘traditional’ elements are by definition immediately familar and welcoming – but good God the sheer scale of the ‘pastichity’ is just mind-blowing. It is a theme park, no question, not least as it genuinely sets out to accurately reproduce the architecture of old. There’s more beautiful sash windows in this building than there is in the entire historic centre of the town!!

This is literally a monster of a metal box clad in a myriad of architectural idioms, most on the same mile-long facade!
It was built to evoke a ‘traditional streetscape’, but clearly that of a provincial Italian town. They don’t do Palladio like that in this country any more, indeed they never did.

heheheh – oh but you haven’t seen so much as a crumb of this place, it is truly staggering on so many levels.
More pics soon………

Some great tweaking there Morlan – most impressive how you do that, especially O’Connell Bridge House as I recall, the floors of which you managed to replicate perfectly above, without the glazing or reflections being tell-taleishly identical.

The altered image above certainly puts an interesting spin on things, and I would largely agree that this area could accommodate this height, though would cut them back by two storeys – eight/nine is adequately tall whilst also respecting the grain of the area and the city at large. Eleven really does dominate unpleasantly over existing development

Also interesting to see how the design considerations need to be altered to account for such a change in height – the small windows become so much more monotonous and their vertical shape perhaps doesn’t work quite as well.
The right-hand building in particular looks so much better with that extra height – it’s very squat and bland without that elegant vertical emphasis. Saying that, the ‘handrail’ on top looks quite ridiculous in its new position – more so 🙂

The first pic I took with the Panasonic FZ5:

…and Sackville Mall with the Sony TRV2000 Time Machine 😀

It’s a middle-range camera, with a 12x optical zoom which was the real attraction. Only got autofocus though which is the catch – otherwise a decent camera, does the job.

…except when you’re in a rush :o. Some pics of a dark Upper street here. It’s really very strange up there now as for the first time in goodnees knows how many decades you can really appreciate the sheer width of the street, vacant of traffic and clutter – almost as it was in 1800s:

And looking south on the eastern side:

The delight that greets guests of the Gresham 🙂

The new taxi rank emerging – the median proper is absolutely minute to accommodate the cars:

It’s not clear if the tree planting pattern is going to be maintained along here. The paving the cars sit on brings the space out to the width of a regular median.

And the holes for the trees and LEDs already in place behind Fr Matthew:

Yes, here’s the view from Westmoreland St with the hole evident in the middle:

It’s such a great pity there isn’t a distinguished corner to the north Earl St junction – so instead of a grand street with every junction defined, essentially all we have is the single Abbey St crossing highlighted with 3 and a half properly designed corner buildings – such a cop-out.
What a difference it would have made from the Bridge to see the junction of Earl St equally well defined with cupolas or domes. What sight it would have been, and such an important contribution to spatial definition on the street.

But especially as Devin says about the pre-1916 terrace being rebuilt to the same low height as before – nothing short of farce on the part of those in charge of reconstruction. If there is one enigma on O’Connell St it is this little terrace – why was it constantly kept small through the ages?! :confused:

As posted before, here it is lower than all the WSC terraces in about 1820:

It may even have been rebuilt again later in the century to the same low height – have yet to find that one out….

That’s interesting lunasa, especially as the date ties in with the removal of the lamps from most of the city centre. Whatever about the standards, the lamps no doubt even then would’ve been quite desirable being of high quality copper, and somwhat quirky in appearance – suited to many commerical premises.

When you think that at about 32 posts went up on O’Cll St – sure that’s 64 lamps alone! Add to that Westmoreland St, College Green and Dame St and you’re approaching 150!
Where the heck did they all go?! The fact that a handful turned up in lunasa’s market perhaps suggests that a wholescale sell-off or disposal was not carried out by the Corporation….

It is sadly ironic that when a lamp moves from the busiest streets in the country to its final ‘resting place’ away from danger, that it is only then it gets destroyed 🙁

Looks like this one was cleaned up to its original state before re-erection in the park.
It seems highly likely the standards were ground up alright – there’s no way 70+ of these could have been kept in storage 🙁