GrahamH
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A little too grand for Carvill’s — but not the former Mercer Hospital 🙂
Those cut stone power-stacks always give the game away.Spot on gunter with Walton’s! One of those obscure ones that blurs into myriad others of its type.
photopol you may initiate proceedings! The freaky head is up at the former City Basin anyway…
Oh, and sorry Global, the little urchin chappie isn’t on the O’Callaghan’s Chance/ICS building at O’Connell Bridge. Good guess though 🙂
The latter piece of tat is from the larger piece of tat on Harcourt Street – the new infill building. Shocking stuff.
The lead lion is from Newman House alright, from which Richard Whaley’s son famously jumped for a bet onto the roof of a carriage out on the road. Luckily for him, if not for his contemporaries, he lived to tell the tale.
The brick gable is extremely annoying.
The limestone pediment is clearly a flourish atop a Victorian commercial building of some kind, with a large limestone chimney stack to the rear – Lower Grafton Street or somesuch.
I don’t envy their job, but the wider culture appears to be one of reaction rather than proaction. Even when area plans and policies such as ACAs are put in place, these constructive measures are considered to be ‘done and dusted’, where one can sit back with yet another objective of the Development Plan ‘sorted’. Simply hoping for the best isn’t enough with these measures, and it applies to all areas, whether it be Grafton Street or Marlborough Street. Proactive efforts have to be made to use these tools, rather than hope they will become relevant when necessary (and brushed under the carpet when not wanted, as with Carlton).
Ah of course it was Metro that halted works, Stephen – doh! Yes the delay is naturally understandable, but again another victim of the RPA effectively holding the ceremonial core of the city to ransom in respect of public domain improvement. If this continues, any provisions in the next Development Plan for the so-called Grand Civic Thoroughfare will soon be obsolete too! The Draft Plan makes a number of references to the north Georgian core and the need for its ‘protection’, particularly Parnell Square and Mountjoy Square – though one would have thought its rehabilitation would be a more appropriate term.
At least plans for the Dublin City Library in the Ambassador are still being drafted, apparently by Seán Harrington Architects – if now under tighter financial constraints – which will act as a major stimulus for the area. I can’t wait to see it unfold. One of the best public decisions made for Dublin city centre in the past decade. The quietest ones tend to be.
16/11/2009
Well we can safely assume now that the Parnell Square Framework Plan is well and truly defunct. If I recall correctly, work was just about to get underway c. 2006-2007 on the public domain of the Cavendish Row side, before halting in its tracks – well before the downturn took hold. Anyone remember why?
Looking back in hindsight at the generally well-considered plan, complied by Howley Harrington Architects in 2004 and published in February 2005, the figures bandied about for some works were staggering, including an eye-popping €2.3 million just for repaving, coach parking provision and planting a few trees on Palace Row! The Celtic Tiger on turbo.
Sadly, not even non-capital intensive projects like improving the curtilage and presentation of the Rotunda have come about. With a number of recent highly dubious facade re-pointing jobs on the west side of Parnell Square, which in the long term actually degrade the quality of urban fabric, it could be argued that the square has degenerated further since the publication of the report.
The same is true of its wider environment, including Parnell Street east, a grand, well-proportioned thoroughfare with an historic building stock of such strength and character as to make one ache at its dilapidated potential.
This is a street that is grossly underrated by planners; one of the greatest assets to the north inner city if its strengths were capitalised on. Its buildings, as shown by gunter on the Dutch Billy thread, date from as far back as the early 18th century, with many more of later Georgian and Victorian origin. This is one of the best streets on the north side of the city precisely because it hasn’t received any large-scale ‘regeneration’ as with Parnell Street to the west.
In spite of a number of sites being tax-incentivised, and being located in the O’Connell Street ACA, ironically nothing but corrosive works have transpired here over the past decade. Most perplexing of all is the recent rendering over in cement of this charming cluster of late Georgian houses, all Protected Structures, at the junction with O’Connell Street.
A handsome array of buildings that encapsulates in a nutshell the dominant building typology of Dublin, until recently the houses featured a loose coat of render, apparently a Victorian lime plaster, which almost certainly would have walked off the buildings with a decent hand chisel and a mallet.
As the Dublin climate already tried to show us.
Also a beautiful narrow house here with roof profile intact and Wyatt windows, one of the very last of its kind in the city.
The potential for a full-on restoration of these merchant houses to their original brick-faced appearance is now almost certainly lost with the application of a strong cemetitious render. Of course no planning permission whatever was applied for. The owner saw fit to sit on these derelict protected buildings for probably over a decade, and then carry out the most botched job conceivable to apply to such a series of buildings. And they’re still empty. The dingy vacant scaffold erected over them earlier this year should have set alarm bells ringing…
If DCC had kept the pressure on owners on Parnell Street through incentivising conservation and restoration works with grant funding, tax carrots, and offers of internal guidance and support, this may very well never have happened. The same can be said of the grubby hotel next door, probably owned by a former Garda, gaming merchant or farmer, who recently saw fit, on Protected Structures, in an ACA, to ‘tart up’ the frontage by applying yet another layer of garish paint over the brickwork. The result.
There doesn’t seem to be an understanding that standard laws of economics do not work, and never will work, in situations and city areas such as these. A concerted effort must be made by a planning authority to effect change on the ground, by contacting owners, holding discussions, finding out stakeholders’ long term plans and proposals, outlining all available options, offer constructive support, and use the stick of CPO if necessary in the case of derelict sites. Instead however, we get opportunist, speculative applications trickling in on the whim of owners, and when they do, inevitably propose lowest common denominator of infill trash. As charted here before, this behemoth of a mega-apartment scheme, tax-incentivised using public funds, with only a miniscule fraction of a street frontage into Parnell Street, gave this back to the citizens of Dublin. Simply outrageous.
The marvelous potential for a gracious Georgian streetscape of red brick, with marching ranks of correct sash windows and well-proportioned shopfronts, is waiting to be realised here, as much as it is sadly being eroded by the day. If this terrace was properly tackled, it would be the making of Parnell Street.
Ah Shaw’s – of course! Doh!
I’m delighted with this, as from day one I thought these alterations had an 1840s appearance – a rare enough survivor in the city centre. How we can now pinpoint the date of the alterations so accurately is pretty darn impressive! It’s incredibly rare one encounters such a well-charted history of a modest building from its inception to the present day, especially over two and a half centuries. The symmetry of the original Georgian centrally-placed entrance and staircase is extremely apparent above, even though it’s a replacement shopfront.
Also note the above Shaw’s chimney is the same chimney as visible in this c. 1860 photograph, and as still evident today. This is not the rear wall corner stack, but what would appear to be an 1840s insertion into a room-dividing wall. This manifests itself as a standard rectangular stack inside the building.
Quite possible yes. It’s hard to think of any other reason why a facade would be tweaked in such a minor way at such enormous expense.
The publishing period would also be quite small, ranging from c. 1845 to 1860, as we know the alterations were in place through late 1860s photographs, while the old-fashioned new Georgian windows that were installed – and as still survive to the side elevation today – date the modification to the late 1840s or early 1850s. A quick search of The Irish Times archive beckons…
It really goes to show though doesn’t it – even in a solid, formulaic-looking case as this, buildings are not always as they seem.
That’s what I was thinking too gunter, but would it match up with the concept of a two-bay boarding house with attendant three-bay private residence as depicted by Oliver Grace? We know only too well the Irish classical school’s love affair with expressing internal functions through window spacing…
Nonetheless, I think we can take the window spacings of all the above drawings with a pinch of salt – they’re all too absract in each of their own ways to warrant in-depth analysis. I think three clustered windows to the middle are the most likely, as we know that a staircase originally ran up the centre of the building, and still does in an altered state, accessed from the street via a centrally-placed entrance door, in the early classical/baroque tradition.
What I find interesting is that the effort was made to reface the entire facade in brick, rather than just shift the odd ope, build up the parapet and smother the whole lot in Victorian icing. It would have been so much cheaper. This is especially curious given that many WSC brick facades on Sackville Street had already been given this fashionable new treatment by 1850. Perhaps there were structural problems with the building? We are also now presented with the prospect that there may be a yellow brick facade underneath that render today *rubs hands*. The fact that we know a relatively modern brick facade of c. 1850 is likely to lie underneath the render also pretty much proves that it was the impact of 1916 that caused the building to be rendered – there would have been no other reason to do so.
The confusion generated by conflicting historical depictions of the roofline and parapets of the JWT building at the corner of O’Connell Street Upper and Henry Street, dating to c. 1751, can now be said to be largely resolved.
As previously posted here, this curious drawing of 1818 showed us a tall parapet wall with attic windows that do not align with the pitch behind, and a gabled or exposed hipped roof.
While this image of 1827 showed a regular matching parapet. The windows were wrong though.
A Brocas print from around the same time showed the former mismatched parapet – so two pictures against one now (though windows also wrong here).
While 1860s and later photographs showed the parapet matched up either way by that stage.
However, this remarkable image shows things in an entirely new light. Kindly supplied by historian Peter Walsh, the picture is from amongst the first sets of photographs ever taken in Ireland c. 1845. Here we can clearly make out the original massive Georgian hipped roof and mismatched parapets!
Also a cute little dormer in the mix. We can also see that the vertical ranks of fenestration are not spaced evenly as they are today, confirming what we suspected – that the entire facade was likely to have been refaced in the mid-19th century.
Below is the wider view showing long-lost Victorian facades on North Earl Street, of a frothy character typical of the 19th century embellishments on Sackville Street, and very similar to elegant stucco fragments that still survive around the corner on Marlborough Street today.
Two angled chimneystacks also penetrate the JWT corner building today – one on the back wall (in line with the fat rear chimney in the above photo) and one on the northern party wall. This is almost certainly the oldest building on O’Connell Street. It is extraordinary that one of the first buildings to be built on Gardiner’s Mall is also one of the last to survive, and even more so next to the cauldron that was the GPO.
Alas it is. Not so much the use, as the arrogant signage they have just erected. Are these guys having a laugh?!
It looks ten times worse during the day, crassly mounted on the facade of Francis Johnston’s exquisitely refined Armoury Building. From what I can make out, this intervention to one of the most important historic buildings in the city doesn’t even have planning permission.
The integrity of this immaculate, historically intact enclave is being eroded by the day, with the eye-poppingly inappropriate taxi rank recently granted permission for expansion by DCC. Words fail. Just some of the chaotic results can be seen above.
As a taster of what we’re up against here, this was recently posted on a taxi driver’s blog: “Foster Place is just beside Trinity College. This rank is one of the oldest in the city of Dublin yet for some reason the powers that be are planning on closing it.“
If only.
It’s simply baffling that over a million euro was spent on the Bus Gate project, with zero improvement – in fact resulting in a net disimprovement – in the aesthetics of the capital’s flagship civic space. No rationalisation whatever of lighting was conducted; not even the car park lighting outside Trinity, as Stephen mentions, being removed. Truly a monument to a lack of joined-up thinking.
The new lamp standard on the median is now the third model of its type in the city, the other two being positioned at Cornmarket and the junction of Harcourt Street and Adelaide Road. As mentioned, these are recycled O’Connell Street median tripartite branches, sprayed crass Celtic Tiger silver, Sony Bravia style, with new lamps affixed atop. The lamps give off good light, but are too flimsy relative to the column bulk for the standard to be correctly proportioned (a problem also generated by the tight clustering of the arms), and to generate the gravitas demanded of a street standard. And of course it is completely random, so either way it jarrs unduly.
Meanwhile, the famous seahorse standards guarding Grattan languish as ever with chipped paint, dirty glass lamps, and cumbersome domestic CFL globes competing with their decorative detailing during the day, and giving off a dull glow by night. Such a shame.
Need it even be reiterated that College Green deserves so much more. Is there no pride in the Lighting Division at all? They don’t even seem to have a legacy of rose-tinted information pamphlets and exhibitions extolling their grand projects, past and present, so beloved of other local authority departments. Indeed, it took Derry O’Connell of An Taisce to write, publish and illustrate the definitive guide to the city’s historic lighting back in the 1980s. Now is the time, more than ever, to be reusing, recycling and showcasing this stock on the city’s streets!
And how in any fuctioning state, these would be the easiest of all properties to redevelop, in the common interest, in the speediest of timeframes.
Very interesting indeed. Galleries tend to be quite accommodating in allowing access (certainly on Francis Street anyway) – not least as they tend to be the most transient of tenants. Sure! Here’s the ladder for the attic! These are definitely worth a closer look.
Benburb Street is essentially the last street in central Dublin with terraces of virtually untouched traditional living-over-the-shop merchant houses and terraces – something which planners do not appear to have copped. Because so many of these buildings are sadly not Protected Structures, and because of the shameful lack of protection afforded to such buildings – or rather any rigorous policy that buildings such as these be restored on the part of the planning authority – means nearly all of these buildings will be demolished or at best mauled in the coming years. The only reason they have survived the boom is due to site assembly aimed at their ultimate replacement.
The hideous PVC windows are but the first step in this degrading process. It looks like it was the new owners of the building who put them in Devin, as it was for sale in the first picture. Presumably the gallery is a tenant? I really do not see why we cannot have an amendment to the 2000 Act that planning permission must be applied for when replacing windows in any pre-1900 building (at the earliest). A number of countries employ a similar blanket protection in respect of all changes to pre-1940 building stock; surely this wouldn’t be difficult to implement simply in respect of windows. Our historic buildings rely on fenestration so heavily for architectural expression – it’s crazy they’re being put in the hands of the likes of the above.
O’Connell Street all abuzz this evening.
It is expected the tram and bus will be removed by midnight. The lifting equipment arrived earlier.
What a scene.
There was an eerie silence on the street for what was a very busy period. In spite of the grim circumstances, the pleasant pedestrian air to the closed off upper street could not have been any more noticeable. So rare to see so many people and no traffic at the same time. All of the usual hostility vanished like the flick of a switch.
An horrific incident.
Luas collides with bus
Some 16 people were injured this afternoon when a Luas tram collided with a bus at the junction of Abbey Street and O’Connell Street in Dublin City centre.
The double-decker Dublin Bus was coming from O’Connell Bridge when it collided with the tram shortly before 3pm. The Luas, which was moving in the direction of Lower Abbey Street, was derailed in the crash.
There is an unconfirmed report that the Luas driver went through the window of his cabin and into the bus. The driver had to be cut out of the wreckage by members of Dublin Fire Brigade and has been taken to hospital.
The emergency services said 16 people had been injured and at least four people had been taken to the Mater hospital by ambulances from St James’s and Loughlinstown hospitals.
Several other people were treated for minor injuries by emergency service personnel at the scene.
A spokeswoman for Luas operator Veolia confirmed several Luas and bus passengers, including the Luas driver, had been injured in the crash.
She said the company had begun an investigation into the incident but it was too early to give more precise details on the circumstance behind the collision.
She said the Luas red line services between Tallaght and Connolly Station were still operating between Tallaght and Smithfield and Luas tickets were valid on Dublin Bus.
© The Irish Times
It’s difficult to imagine the Luas being at fault, especially when one sees buses tearing over the bridge and down the street to make the lights on a constant basis, but we shall see how things unfold. There could be some extremely nasty injuries there 🙁
