notjim
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@gunter wrote:
. . . the leaden sculpture . . .
.I don’t agree with you regarding the Children of Lir; I don’t find it leaden, but more importantly, I don’t find it Anglo-Saxon, in fact, I don’t think the Anglo-Saxon world is united in how they commemorate their dead, American’s die for their friends and their memorials, with one famous, glorious, exception, are realistic figurative statues, even the Vietnam memorial has a little bronze action scene nearby, the wall seemed too weird when proposed to be allowed to stand alone. The British died for an ideal of valour and out of a social obligation and they favour expressionist statues and lists of names, we died for the dead and for a fairytale we only half believed and our most noted memorials are either graves, grave-like, or representations of myths.
1) Cool pics.
2) Image size:
3)Irish Times thread
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3653I thought this would be more of a problem than it is; since it meets the old buildings but doesn’t follow the building line and is penetrated by the viaduct, it seems to me to work quite well visually, the parapet line matches but the material doesn’t.
Yes; that is the big negative in an otherwise appealing development, it would have killed them to make the new pillars match the old?
As pointed out on the platform11 forum, the RPA have posted material from their Metro North open days,
http://www.rpa.ie/cms/download.asp?id=814
to
The new development by the railway viaduct on Talbot St is nearly ready, is create a short new st going north and a small plaza under the railway:
@PTB wrote:
I haven’t seen all of the masterplan but I seem to notice that there is no indoor sport hall.
Not true, the masterplan includes a sports hall and pool built into the ground so its windows look out over sports fields. It looks very fine.
tommyt: do look at the masterplan, it does look impressive. The bottom c. third of the part to the west of Grangegorman Rd is playing fields and this includes a tree lined walk, I take it this is the existing tree lined walk you always see in pictures of the site?
How would you increase the density; replace one of the quads with a big big buildings, thicken the buildings to reduce the quad size, get rid of some of these “green fingers”?
[aside] Don’t get me started on TCD and bikes, it’s a whole tale of amazing disgracefulness, for a start the director of buildings isn’t responsible for cycle, as he is for parking, the SU is. [/aside]
You thought it was low density; it seemed to me to be about right for a university with 22 thousand students, particularly given the remit of making it clearly permeable and replete with community facilities, something I think the masterplan achieves. The site though isn’t huge, not once the HSE part is taken out.
I wasn’t sure whether the drawings of the bus depot where for future expansion or for commercial development. Assuming though that without the buildings they have marked as future expansions, the plan caters for the existing DIT and leaving out the bus depot they look to me like they are short of expansion possibilities. This would be worry since it would put the circulation spaces and playing fields under development pressure in the long term.
I agree; on first reading the plan looks fantastic, the established experience with working with Universities really shows. Great stuff.
The one concern is that they will build out the site pretty quickly; what are the long term plans, are they hoping for some of the bus depot or what?
Sketches of the DIT masterplan are available here:
http://www.grangegormandevelopmentagency.ie/strategicplan.html
and a longer version available here, listed as June 2008.
http://www.dit.ie/about/grangegorman/@gunter wrote:
It could be worth looking at.
Perhaps it is being looked at; I know some secrets but not many! However, the College seems, by international, even national, standards, very cautious about this sort of thing so I wouldn’t bet on it,
However, who knows how everything will change now we have a new administrative structure, effective basically now the way the college is run has been completely changed, we have a Vice Provost, old title, new job, who is to run all academic aspects of the college, a “Chief Operating Office” to run the administrative aspects, everyone else reports to these two and strategy will be decided by a committee of these two, the three faculty deans and the provost. If only we had a normal amount of funding . . .
I think it is weird how undeveloped this corner is, I wonder if there is some secret plan I don’t know about. On the face of it though, a square here would be fantastic, either bordered directly by the TCD buildings, or with railings marking a perimeter near the building line.
I think you are crazy though to think that the ground floor of the old building could be developed for retail, it would do serious injury to the fabric of the building and to the integrity of the front square complex as a range of buildings dedicated to the college’s academic goals. This is an important point, the college, any university, has a very complicated mission and one that requires a certain poise, appearance, of putting its students and staff before some obvious, short term, commercial advantages. The college has a number of audiences, people it needs to promote itself too, students, obviously, but perhaps most importantly, potential hires. Third level research is about human capital. Sometimes what is taken to be “old school” behaviour is actual an acute and nimble understanding of the challenges presented to the college, not always though.
The Stewards House is a different, presumably that would offer a commercial opportunity in a urban square. More generally it is frustrating that the College doesn’t exploit many of the commercial possibilities offered by its city center location, for example, why has it been so slow reopening the Lincoln Place shops for business, why not reopen shops on Westland Row or Pearse Street, why doesn’t it own buildings on the other side of Nassau St and so on.
I certainly agree with you regarding the possibility of a square between the Lords portico, Westins and the funny corner of TCD with the Chief Steward’s house, although its current state is pleasingly mysterious, it could be magnificent; there is the problem that people live in those rooms, but, of course, some of the ground floor residents could be relocated to whatever thrilling nearby residential building the council provides in return for the use of that triangle of land. What use would the Chief Steward’s house be put to, surely some cool and imaginative use could be found.
@johnglas wrote:
notjim: Smithfield was a market space and well out of the city centre.
gunter (or should it be Sherlock?): your Holmesian capacity is boundless – of course it’s an 18th C taxi-rank.Or taxi hazard to use the old phrase. As for large paved area, I suppose the promenade on OCS would have been an example, long lost.
You are of course right about Smithfield, I was offering it as an contemporary rather than an historic example.
@johnglas wrote:
notjim: Smithfield was a market space and well out of the city centre.
gunter (or should it be Sherlock?): your Holmesian capacity is boundless – of course it’s an 18th C taxi-rank.Or taxi hazard to use the old phrase. As for large paved area, I suppose the promenade on OCS would have been an example, long lost.
