GrahamH

So many posts over the past 48 hours have screamed little but ‘oh but Mammy, Johnny down the road has one’.
To pick up one one point, the very reason Irish people ‘gasp’ when they go abroad to New York or wherever is because we are different, refreshingly so. Our lack of an audio meter-like skyline is because we are NOT the very places that have them! This is partially down to planning alright, but largely as has been pointed out there is little need for glittering skyscrapers in a country of four million people. Our nation is the UK equivalent of Birmingham. Our capital is a suburb in Birmingham.

Dublin’s uniqueness stems from being the very thing that it is, a low-rise intimate capital of a small, peripheral European country. It will never have a large conglomeration of international-equivalent ‘skyscrapers’, nor is this desirable.
A medium-rise Docklands of 8-10 storeys punctuated by the odd ‘feature’ building of 30-40 storeys in the Docklands is much more suited to the scale of Dublin city. Unfortunately it seems we’re not going to get even this in light of what has happened thus far.

As for what Americans think about the scale of our buildings, with all due respect blah blah blah, who gives a toss about what Americans think, or anyone else for that matter, about the scale of our buildings. This is not contest.

😮

I’m guessing you have to look at that every day given your own house’s similarity?!

Out of all the ‘ugly building’ threads over the years and newspaper articles and all the rest, there is one building that has never ever cropped up. It is close to a building that often features, i.e. Dublin Airport’s 1960s terminal building, but is never mentioned itself.

And it is of course – Aer Lingus Head Office 😮

Welcome to Ireland.

Yes a well-proportioned structure with of course the most fantastic gothick sashes – and famous as has been said from Malton’s Capel St/Parliament St vista:

It’s a crying shame to see it in the condition it is – definitely a case for getting the wheels of protected structure legislation rolling.

On this issue of fa̤adism Рthat is to say the practice of retaining older facades for new structures to the rear РI read an article recently expressing some opinions on the practice that proved interesting.
I suppose the central ideology behind retaining façades is the preservation of the streetscape and architecture of merit, whilst allowing ‘modern life’ to continue unhindered in its expansion and change. It is a compromise.

The article argues that façadism can be looked on negatively due to “the breakdown between form and function, and therefore the legibility of the city, whilst also blocking architectural innovation… Its broader societal effects are the concealment of social change and the production of a historically depthless image, which subsequently completely alters the cultural meanings of the urban landscape”.
(An opinion I think would also be applicable to reproduction façades)

This would seem to be the central objection most people have to façadism in all its forms: buildings that purport to be one thing, but are in fact another. It is dishonest. And this dishonesty not only affects the building but also the street in which it is set, as one can no longer ‘read’ the streetscape; architecturally and culturally it has been altered from the status quo of original and ‘honest’ structures.

I understand this logic, and fully accept how one would detest the practice.
However I think that once you bring the façade/pastiche debate to this level of consideration, one also ought to be more readily able to accept individual cases or circumstances in which reproduction or façade retention is used because they are aware of the history of the site – whether it be the building that once stood there, the controversy of its demolition, the structure that subsequently replaced it, the politics of the event, or the impact of the replacement on the streetscape. Once one is aware of this, and one knows that this is a once-off, unique development in the context of the city at large and is not standard practice, I think the use of reproduction or façade retention in exceptional settings is an acceptable practice.

The ‘unique’ element I think is crucial to this debate – were one to go about willy-nilly erecting reproduction buildings, the city would crumble in the credibility stakes. It would be a charade.

But in key spaces where a replica building can reunify a terrace or streetscape in a fashion that contemporary architecture cannot do (admittedly highly subjective), then I think reproduction can be at least be considered rather than automatically ruled out as is always the case. In such unique circumstances, as a general rule there would be significant public interest in the scheme, to such an extent as to make a building quite open and honest about its provenance and epoch. And once a few years go by, as with all buildings, people who detested the notion mellow to it, and begin to appreciate it for what it is – a fine, aesthetically pleasing structure built of quality handcrafted materials. A one-off, tailored for that location, not one of a thousand erected by developers across the city, or as part of a wider policy by planning authorities.
Particularly in relation to the practice of façade retention, like the Westin or the terrace of buildings on South Anne Street, the article quotes Lefebvre: “the tendency to make reductions of this kind – reductions to parcels, to images, to façades, that are made to be seen and to be seen from (thus reinforcing the notion of ‘pure’ visual space) – is a notion that degrades space.”

It also says quite correctly I think that “a neighbourhood or even a whole city may change in function and social make-up in a matter of a few years, yet remain static in the visual sense.” It adds: “…all urban landscapes are in some regard monuments to past events; the retention of façades alone erases the genius loci of a place. All the memories contained in the space are eradicated.”

I’d largely concur with this, but again would apply the above proviso. Provided façadism is restricted to exceptionally limited circumstances, it does have a limited role to play.
If a building simply cannot adapt to a contemporary use in a changed (usually modernised) environment without substantial alteration/demolition behind the façade, then it just may be permitted. Now who decides these criteria, and how they are applied is a tricky question alright. You might argue however that as in days gone by if a building becomes redundant, you demolish it and build something that is of use, tailor-made to what is needed and in an ‘honest’ contemporary idiom.
But does this always have to be the case, following on from what has always been done? Why not preserve a façade of architectural and/or sculptural/material merit, especially if it contributes to the streetscape at large?

To say in a sweeping fashion that the practice is ‘dishonest’ in being non-representative of the interior and what is really happening behind the façade, well isn’t this the case with the majority of older buildings anyway in Dublin in particular? Georgian/Victorian/Edwardian buildings featuring contemporary shops on the ground floor, a modern service provider on the second, and storage in gutted interiors on the third and fourth?! This is hardly representative of the period of the building or of what one might expect from outside. Agreed that yes, it does reflect the social and cultural evolution of the building, but comparing it purely on this ‘depthless’ ‘unrepresentative’ basis to a modern office or retail development behind an historic façade, they are directly comparable on a physical level.

Likewise the conservation lobby including renowned State agencies like the OPW, place particular emphasis on ‘renewing’ period structures. As the old mantra goes ‘we are confident we can find new uses for the old buildings’.
Is façadism not just taking this practice one step further, and in exceptional circumstances? And even in these situations, the preservation of as much of the originality and character of the original structure ought to be encouraged.

Anyone have any opinions (again :o) on these issues? One thing that ought to be noted I think is that in Dublin we are quite sheltered from these debates and cases of these practices, in contrast to the likes of Edinburgh or Bath where they often rage – so just to acknowledge the notion of ‘exceptional circumstances’ may be easily applied to Dublin but not necessarily other cities.

The vast majority of the city centre is capable of absorbing contemporary buildings – indeed the only sites I can think of where I think reproduction is desirable is the Ulster Bank site on College Green, and Penneys and Schuh on O’Connell Street – three buildings by their design, and their modernist idiom I think are damaging to their respective streetscapes.

But Nassau St is more than capable of absorbing contemporary architecture, as are 99% of city centre streets made up of that jumbling mixture that makes Dublin what it is.