JOF
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Why retain the facade of the Carlton at all? Surely It would be better to start from scratch. On a site that big with such an extensive street frontage on the main street of Dublin you could make an enormous impact. The Abbey should go for something very distinctive and create a landmark for Upper O’Connell St. in the same way that the GPO or Clearys are landmark buildings for the lower part of the street. Nice and all as the Carlton is it’s a little anonymous. We should be able to include our National Theatre on the same list of civic buildings as the Custom House, the Bank of Ireland, Trinity College etc.
De Blacam & Meagher’s “Wooden Building” on Exchange St. Upp. Pity An Taisce forced a reduction in height,it could have easily gone up another few stories.
Seamus, stop criticising the Spike like so many other begrudgers in this city, its dramatic, elegant, modern and is exactly what the street and the city needs. And as for your 1916 memorial idea, there’s already a memorial up the road on Parnell Square, not to mention Pearse St., Cathal Brugha St., Sean McDermott St., Con Colbert Rd., Heuston Station, Pearse Station, Connolly Station and any number of parks and estates in the suburbs, (e.g. the Ballymun towers). In fact the city is full of 1916 memorials, but (to stay on the Kevin Myers theme) inexplicably not a single city centre WW1/WW2 memorial a la Lutyens’ Cenotaph. There’s a prominent memorial in Stephen’s Green commemorating Irish aid to distressed civilians in post-war Germany, but not a single monument to remember the Irish who helped defeat the Nazis in the first place! Very odd in my opinion, but then this is an architectural forum not a political one.
It originally had to do with a Royal city charter didn’t it, but I don’t know what we do to make a town a city in this country these days. For example, as far as I’m aware Galway lost its city status in the 19th century but regained it sometime after independence, but I’m not sure how this was done.
I hope this idea becomes reality sooner rather than later. It seems to me that the lack of a Faculty of Architecture in a University the size of Trinity is a glaring omission. And the record of Trinity as a patron of good modern architecture is pretty good,(e.g. Berkeley Library, Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin Dental Hospital), so I think we could have the prospect of a well designed School should they ever go ahead with the idea.
According to todays Sunday Times, Treasury Holdings have dropped Kevin Roche and have hired Scott Tallon Walker to provide a new masterplan. They are expected to produce a more “conventional” approach. Hopefully not more of the same tedium a la IFSC 2.
In response to JK’s point, I would agree that modern buildings inserted into an older streetline can work very well. Personally, I think that places like Dame St., or some streets in Temple Bar, where Georgian, Victorian and Modern buildings are interspersed are some of the most beautiful, diverse and stimulating streets in Dublin. Howevever, on Fitzwilliam St. there are about a dozen houses all in a row to be replaced, on a street which is lined with nothing else but Georgian townhouses for over 800 metres. I think in these circumstances a dozen or so modern interpretations of townhouses all lumped together in an otherwise homogenous street would not work particularly well, and would not do anything to create the kind of “beautiful mish-mash” which inspired this thread in the first place.
While reading the discussion on the merits of reconstructing Mountjoy Square, I think it leads nicely on to the issue of ESB’s Fitzwilliam Street offices. Would a similar reconstruction work here, or should something completely different be built instead. Personally, I think a reconstruction could work, if the replicas were built with authentic materials and were built to the original site plans, with a high standard of craftmanship.(i.e. not just Georgian facades in front of a modern office block, but an accurate reconstruction of the original houses.)
