gunter
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@KeepAnEyeOnBob wrote:
I still think it’s just like a more modern and larger scale version of Arthur’s Quay. . . I can’t see it adding much more to the city either.
Surely it much more important than that!
The whole dilemma with this scheme was that people, who care about reinforcing the city centre, want to see uses like this located where they belong – in the city centre, but not at any cost, and certainly not at the cost of demolishing almost everything in sight.
The breakthrough with this revised scheme (as described in the text anyway) is that they appear to have found a way to accommodate, both a fancy new shopping centre, and a regeneration of the existing building stock, in the one scheme.
OK, there might still be a bit too much ‘facade retention’ as opposed to ‘building conservation’ in it and it could all turn into a Limerick version of Marks & Spencers’ Duke St. re-make, but it’s still a dramatic advance on what it was going to be.
Had the scheme been refused, due the carnage of historic structures and streetscapes, it would have reinforced the false perception that mega development, like fancy new shopping centres, are incompatible with city centre locations, and incompatible with conservation!
That could have been almost as devastating an outcome as permitting the development and bulldozing the block!
We don’t often get good news, can we not just enjoy it for a few days?
@GrahamH wrote:
🙂
. . . . whatever fills this site, above and beyond all other contentious cases over the years, shall stand as a monument to this generation’s outlook on the built environment.One option would be to not fill the space!
Create a square on this side of the street, corresponding to Merrion Sq. and Fitzwilliam Sq. on the other side.
Complete the Georgian streetscape by omission!
. . Yea, I can see the ESB going for that one :rolleyes:
@GrahamH wrote:
I think it is a rather good building, ground floor aside, were it not for the location.
@Devin wrote:
I thought the impact of the building (pre-painting) on the Georgian Mile was surprisingly low for all the fuss there was at the time about how wrong it was to demolish the original buildings & put a modern building there.
I understand the longing for some kind of restoration of the original streetscape, and I share that longing, and I also believe that ‘restoration’ should be one of the options available to every city, damaged by catastrophe, neglect or regrettable intervention, but actually deciding to put the clock back forty years! . . . I can’t see that being the right decision.
Then there’s the existing building! . . . the Stephenson/Gibney (wasn’t Garvey also involved) building is a sophisticated piece of work, for 1962, (ground floor, recent pink paint and perhaps some issues of unreleaved repetition aside).
Who’s to say that a future generation won’t want to ‘restore’ that facade to represent all that brash confidence and uncontrolled energy of developers’ Dublin of the 1960s!
page from Frank McDonald’s ‘The Destruction of Dublin’@Tuborg wrote:
. . . Its pretty obvious now that ABP let it be known that the project wouldn’t have had much chance of proceeding in its previous form!
You sometimes suspect that this is what happens, but unless the Bord actually write to the applicants seeking specific further information, I thought they were precluded from giving tips and pointers!
This could be a genuine change of heart on the part of the developers, or more likely, a bit of belated sound advice from their architects (who are the architects now, do we know? wasn’t it originally Douglas Wallace?).
Anyway, top marks to whoever is responsible and, as reddy said, it’s nice to see the system working once in a while . . . and look! the sun has come out:)
@jdivision wrote:
There’s a further information notice in on this in the Irish Times today.
Well spotted jdivision.
On the face of it, this looks like a huge step in the right direction.
@Praxiteles wrote:
”The redemptive beauty of Christ is reflected above all in the Saints of every age, but also in the works of art which the Faith has brought forth: they have the ability to purify and raise our hearts and, thereby, to transport us beyond ourselves to God, who is Beauty itself. The theologian Joseph Ratzinger is convinced that this encounter with beauty “which wounds the soul and in this way opens its eyes” is “the true apology of Christian faith.”
(© L’Osservatore Romano – 8-9 June 2009)I can’t help this, but every time you post one of those treatise on ‘beauty’, I think of Quasimodo cowering behind a gargoyle!
You just can’t link beauty with faith, or goodness, beauty is a set of conventions that a culture invents, not some kind of fundamental truth.
No rules! . . . . I like that 🙂
Can re re-use the official site map?
Note: the few Georgian houses that the ESB didn’t manage to knock down the first time round are shaded in brown, just in case anyone wants to do a Sam Stephenson on them!
Thanks for posting the . . . ‘Strictly Private and Confidential’ . . . . brief :), I hadn’t spotted that!
Note that section C; Final Pass/Fail Criterion states:
”Provision of satisfactory references attesting to the applicant having previously delivered comparable design and development projects successfully and the manner in which the services were delivered”
A bit like the Sydney authorities precluding Jorn Utzon because he hadn’t done any other opera houses!
If I’m reading this right the competition is intended to produce three winners, is that the way others read it?
. . . but it’s not a proper two-stage competition, the picking of the chosed architect from this ”winning” three doesn’t seem to involve any further design consideration!!!
Presumably costs, including fees, are intended to be the suject of the final battle to the death. I notice that enclosed (and sealed) fee submissions are not intended to impact on the initial choice of the ”winning” three designs, but I didn’t see anything precluding a Dutch auction after that.
. . . not that architect fees should even enter this equation, this should be about righting a wrong, not about creating another opportunity to out-do the wrong already done.
I don’t know, I think archiseek is going to have to host it’s own parallel virtual competition, for those of us whose turn-over dips slightly under the €2.5 million 🙂
Anyone know what the brief is?
I imagine item no. 1 may be:
‘contestants will provide one squillion sq.m. of office space’.The laugh is that this will probably end up in the bin with Sean Dunne’s ‘architectural’ competition winner for the Ballsbridge site, after Bord Pleanála have held it up to the light:)
. . . although mightn’t be so humorous if we all end up forking out a few more quid on our electric bills to pay for it!
@missarchi wrote:
does anyone like this effect???
Is it not a bit . . . shadows on concrete?
Here’s a high level view of College Street towards College Green, complete with plethora of buses.
@lostexpectation wrote:
. . . . got anything to say about ugly buildings no, then shut up
back to architecture.
‘The Timber Yard’ housing development on the Coombe Bypass.We know O’D + T are above reproach and all that, got more awards than this has punch card windows, but, for the purposes of debate, is this a beautiful building, or an ugly building?
It got a chirpy enough review from Ali (the city architect) in a recent RIAI journal, but it strikes me as unnecessarily severe and slightly loaded with architectural intentions at the expense of streetscape or even space-making (allegedly there’s a ”public square” somewhere within!).
I think It’s a legacy of the Modern Movement that still today there’s almost an inverse relationship between pleasant design and respected architecture, a relationship that I suspect would give Adolf Loos cause for satisfaction. If we were to check out the record of architectural awards over the last while, is it not true that the more plain the architecture, the more decorated the architects?
This won’t please Devin . . . us talking about completed stuff again.
Not quite in the same league, but still an interesting piece of craft in it’s own right is this ‘graining’ being done to the doors of James’s Street Church today. At least I think ‘graining’ is the right word, it’s a two stage painting process done in imitation of wood and I haven’t seen it in a good while.
There’s a touch of the H-blocks about it, but the finished article does look quite good. I wonder if they intend to go back over the elaborate hinges now in imitation of cast iron!
@DjangoD wrote:
. . . . even if some of the bankers didn’t look too comfortable with the proximity of those weird longhairs encroaching on their territory.
Perhaps it was the sight of pigs impaled and roasting on a spit that made the bankers feel a bit uncomfortable!
@CologneMike wrote:
A decision on the revised plans is expected next month, after Regeneration Developments submitted revised drawings for the project two weeks ago.
Is there any way of finding out what these revised drawings show, is it a comprehensive re-design, or just a bit of tinkering around?
@Tuborg wrote:
I also hope ABP lays down strict conditions in relation to the Granary as the proposed intervention seems pretty unsympathetic to me anyway!
Completely agree with Tuborg, that was one of the more disappointing aspects of the proposal. The opportunity to integrate the retained street-front buildings on the perimeter of the block into the internal ‘streetscape’ / circulation routes of the shopping centre, as has been done to great effect elsewhere, was completely missed. This seems particularly unfortunate in the case of the Granary building.
@Tuborg wrote:
Id love to know what these “revised drawings” contain!
Again, there must be some way of finding this out, is there no public entitlement to see such a submission, even if there’s no ABP mechanism for further commenting on it?
Your Abbot Suger, is an absolutely fascinating character. Clarke describes him as; ”one of the first men of the middle ages whom one can think of in modern terms”.
On reflection, I’m not sure to what extent it was suggested that Suger knowingly contrived in cutting and pasting various achievements and attributes onto the shoulders of his abbey’s (and France’s) patron saint, but that account (in the introduction), of how the legends of three separate historical figures came to be amalgamated into one formidable ‘St. Denis’, each bringing very useful attributes to the party, does seem to illustrate the accommodating workings of the medieval mind.
Is it fair to say that Suger had set his sights on achieving great works, architecturally, artistically, politically and religously, and to accomplish great works it helped to have a great story?
What seems clear from even a brief reading of your links and Clark’s ‘Civilisation’ is that, under the influence of men like Suger, mid 12th century France was a fountainhead of energy and ideas and one of the most enduring of these ideas was Gothic architecture.
I’m not equiped to debate this subject on theological gounds, and while I don’t doubt that faith and the glorification of God played a part in all of this, it’s the other forces; the mastery of material, the inter-urban competitive dynamic, the sheer will on the part of the tiny community of master-masons to push construction knowledge and craft to the limit, that strike me as possibly the more critical factors in the development and evolution of the movement.
I don’t know, I could be completely wrong.
To be honest, the nave and the west end of St. Sebalduskirche (most of those pictures, except no. 6) isn’t great, the real glory of the church is the ‘German Hall Church’ choir added in the 14th century, (I think). I might have more pictures. The exterior of the east end butts onto the main street leading up to the Kaiserburg, totally spectacular!, but usually covered in scaffolding.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Abbot Suger, who was responsible for what is often recognized as the first Gothic church, said that his abbey church of St Denis transformed “that which is material to that which is immaterial”.
Kenneth Clark (the art historian, not the politician) had some interesting things to say on this subject.
It turns out that Abbot Suger was not averse to accumulating ‘material’, his great gold cross at St. Denis, for example, was reportedly 24 feet high and encrusted with jewels and precious crystals. Suger also seized on a Greek philosophical text called ‘The Heavenly Hierarchies’ had it translated and put it about that it had been written by the Athenian convert to Christianity with, conveniently, the same name as the saint to whom his abbey was dedicated, to justify, and give a sacred/philosophical foundation to, his passion for beautiful things.
Suger himself gave an account (recorded by Clark) of how he releaved a bunch of unworldly Cistercian of a valuable bequest of jewels for considerably under the market rate, as they appeared not to understand the monetary value of their baubles.
Add to the fact that Suger was a fervent nationalist, possibly in the Jean Marie Le Pen mould, and was capable of navigating through the cut and thrust of politics as Regent of France for seven years, the picture emerges of a man who may have had more than God on his mind.
In considering the magnificence of Gothic architecture, ‘material’ is a useful word to keep in mind for another reason also:
Whatever about the inspiration behind the emergence of the Gothic style, and Suger’s undoubted role in it, to my mind, the real engine driving the movement was the almost obsessive exploitation of a material; stone. You can’t explore the progress of Gothic architecture without realizing that, close to the root of it must have been a burning desire to push stone to the limits of it’s capabilities. I presume that the mystique of the master mason, which is a known legacy of the middle ages, arose at this time from their ability to conceive and build incredible structures and presumably in the process challenge each other to go one better.
St Sebalduskirche in Nurnberg. A late Gothic hall church where the purity of the architectural forms are not even interrupted by capitals as the ribs of the columns merge with the ribs of the vaulting, as if the stonework was extruded!Raising the funds to pay for these incredible structures is where the spirituality of the whole exercise is inclined to break down for me.
Who knows what was going on in the medieval mind, but I suspect that if true spirituality was at play, the places of worship may have ended up a tad more humble, and the worship of beauty may have found some more simple expression.
Obviously from an architectural point of view, this would have been a pity, to say the least.
@Praxiteles wrote:
As Mâle puts it: “Aware of the power of art over childlike and humble souls, the mediaeval Church tried through sculpture and stained glass to instill into the faithful the full range of her teaching. For the immense crowd of the unlettered, the multitude which had neither psalter nor missal and whose only book was the church, it was necessary to give concrete form to abstract thought.â€
Von Simson states that “the church is, mystically and liturgically, an image of heaven†,
I don’t want to interrupt you, Praxiteles, when you’re in full flow, but I would suggest that the desire for aggrandizement may have had a significant role to play in cathedral architecture, as it does in most jaw-dropping architecture, and not necessarily aggrandizement of the guy who may, or may not, be above.
On a related matter, I would also suggest that it often wasn’t until the reformation that the purity of much gothic architecture was revealed. Stripped of multi-coloured stained glass and painted saints from every niche, and with the interiors given a good coat of whitewash, the soaring simplicity of the structural forms could be seen for the first time.
I note that your posted images of York Minster and Wells Cathedral illustrate, in part, the purifying effects of a good protestant make-over!
As someone who (as a ninteen year old), only finally resolved to find a route into architecture when stood in awe in Vierzehnheiligen, I am fully aware of the power of great ‘sacred’ architecture, but was it the spirit that moved Balthasar Neumann, or the art?
