gunter
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You think this is in the Phoenix Park, but you have no idea what building!
Is that what you’re saying?
I wouldn’t like you to go to too much trouble . . . so I’ll tell you it’s not in the Phoenix Park.
That’s great that everything worked out in Harold’s Cross.
Now back to the Finial!
A clue: It’s centrally located and it’s on the northside, but not by much.
@BTH wrote:
We already have a pretty good example of exactly the type of development this site needs up in Belfast. Victoria Square, as covered on other threads, is pretty successful – the glass roof is spectacular, the way it knits into the fabric of the city centre is exemplary and almost effortless seeming and although I find some of the slightly more po-mo pastiche elements a bit over the top (and the dome is so over the top its coming down the other side!) I find it an enjoyable place to be, really feeling like a piece of city rather than an open ended mall. They drop you into a lower level at each of the three entry points but it’s handled as a grand, urban stair the full width of the street rather than a bitty collection of escalators. it’s worth a look as it’s as good a precedent as you’ll find for the challenge of the site in question.
I got up to Belfast last week and had my first look at this scheme. I agree with BTH that Victoria Sq. is a very decent piece of urbanism and the drop down at entry point, via flights of civic steps, is surprisingly successful, but I think part of the success of the scheme heavily depends on the visual connection that the scheme makes with Belfast’s primary Victorian heritage. The imagery, the stone and brick sturdyness, it all feels right in a Belfast context. You feel like you’re in a great Victorian city, entering some great Victorian train station.
I don’t think any of that would work on O’Connell Street, any more that I think that the similar, ‘contemporary Victorian’, approach that deB & M have been trying to get passed on the Digital Hub site works either.
I know that this isn’t what BTH was advocating, but I thought I’d try and clarify the point anyway.
More that any other major scheme currently being proposed for a site in Dublin, the O’Connell Street scheme shows up the uncertainties in contemporary architecture at the moment. Part of the scheme wants to be jagged and shape-ist and another part of it want to be funky wallpaper and behind the archtecture, the whole time, you’re conscious that the developers are there counting the square meters.
Normally with a development of this size you can say, well, whatever about the rest of the scheme, this little square, or this particular building, or this piece of streetscape, is definitely top class, but there isn’t really any bit of the scheme that stands out as a ‘must have’, a contemporary gem that would go towards making the rest of the scheme palatable.
On johnglas’s point about the planning process, I know it would be open to abuse and cronyism, but on a site as important as this, you could make the case for having something like the English system where, as I understand it, the developer has to get the approval of some sort of eminent architectural panel en-route to his planning permission and the more dubious claims to ‘outstanding architectural merit’ might be held up to a bit of peer scrutiny.
If we’re handed a planners report in a few weeks time, signed by Kieran Rose or another senior planning official, telling us that, despite the scheme being in conflict with a couple of dozen Development Plan Objectives and best practice guidelines, the scheme should be permitted because it has ‘outstanding architectural merit’, what are we supposed to understand by that? Is a planning official equiped to make that kind of judgement?, who do they phone if they’re not sure? What if they grant permission for the scheme on the basis that it’s an ‘iconic design statement’ and in due course it’s built and then it turns out not to be an ‘iconic design statement’, does that invalidate the planning permission?
Surprisingly little comment on the treatment of the Carlton cinema itself.
I imagine that is just a glitch in the reporting, I can’t believe An Taisce would let that piece of rolling facadism pass unchallenged.
You can’t shoot people, in a residential area, after 1.00a.m. that’s a breach of planning (noise pollution).
As far as I can tell, all third party submissions, whether of the standard nimby variety, or an improbable ‘unsolicited’ letter of support, are treated by the planning authority with an impressive equality of disdain. I’ve never yet read a planner’s report that said, ‘Having read the arguments presented by X in in their carefully detailed observation, dated Y, I am persuaded that the proposed development is (a) a pile of shite, or (b) the best thing since sliced bread.’
In the typical planner’s report, the content of any given third party observation is usually reduced to a two word synopsis in which the first word is invariably ‘over’, followed by any of the following ‘ – development, looking, shadowing, bearing, . . ‘ although occassionally you see the synopsis stretched to three words to accommodate the phrase ‘out of character’. I imagine they have a special bucket when they get serial letters of support, such as in the odd case of the Dunne development in Ballsbridge.
This is what happens when you make them too easy! Collins Barracks is right for ‘B’ The inscription is ‘Charles Duke of Rutland Lord Lieutenant 1785’ I never knew of it’s existance, until I went looking for ctesiphon’s fecking wall.
What about the finial?
These things are maddening aren’t they, so we’ll press on.
However, I suspect that obscure bits of wall down back lanes may be a minority interest, so what about some higher profile stuff.
The question remains, where are these? [Rules observed, within the canal ring, public access, all of that!]
A
B
Henrietta Place, corner with Yarnhall Street, that would be correct!
That’s the front of Bolton Street Tech. on the right (first clue) and straight on down to the left is the corner house on Henrietta Street, which is the site of a current open architectural competition (second clue).
Go on then, where’s your date stone?
@ctesiphon wrote:
Interestingly, your wall has one of those ghost lintels too (to the right of the window), indicating a previous opening.
You say that as if the ghost lintel was some kind of random feature. It took a long time to find a ghost lintel.
On your wall, I was actually thinking of the other side of Bow Street.
The educational establishment near my warehouse is not Blackhall Place, but you’re on the right side of the city.
Last clue: The warehouse is near a place of (current) architectural interest.
I found a wall that matches your wall, but with a window and a traffic light in the way. I guess that means it’s not your wall!
I did have a wander around Smithfield, but I didn’t find it.
Hold on a minute here, the penny’s dropping, it’s the back of the Smithfield scheme facing Bow Street (the A + D Wejchert scheme), that’s where the wall is, right?
Is that Church Street with a spire?
JJ McCarthy did James’s Street church (RC) as far as I know, does anyone have a print of it with it’s intended spire?
The only sections of ctesiphon’s cycle route that could possibly yield photographs B and C are Donore Ave. (something to the rear of the Meath Hospital), or possibly the South Citcular Road, but the path is too narrow and the stonework is too clean for the boundary wall (C) to be at Griffith Barracks (the bit up at that awful school).
For anyone still interested in finding the three storey warehouse (A), it is located no more that 30m away from ctesiphon’s cycle route, near another educational establishment of dubious merit.
@notjim wrote:
I was convinced the warehouse was the wool shed on spencer dock, but I went round and it wasn’t: did find a planning notice on it, a gym, as good a use as any. I wonder if they will remember it used to have a cupola before it was stabilized with a galvanized roof.
The Wool shed is a peach, but you’re right, it would have been the wrong answer.
You’re not allowed play with ctesiphon, he’s broken the rules.
Hold on a minute here. I refer you to the rules:
(section 37, paragraph 19):
‘A poster may not post a new pictorial challange until he, or another party, has correctly answered the existing challenge’, or,
Under sub-section 14, ‘admitted that he hasn’t a clue’
The warehouse (in the original question) is not in the docklands, but your strange directionless wanderings appear to have take you within spitting distance, at one point.
Devin: I agree with you totally that the renders are too transparent. No building will vanish into the sky like this, and if the building vanishes, what are the trees on the sky park going to look like?
It is good to finally see a view from O’Connell Bridge, a render from up around Cleary’s would be interesting!
Leaving aside the ski slope itself, I think the biggest problem with this scheme remains (a) the amount of demolition and (b) the quality, or otherwise, of the proposed public spaces.
Like the majority of other posters, I can’t really see, in the quality of the supposed new ‘square’ at Henry Street, the justification for the demolition of this fine streetscape.
