rumpelstiltskin
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Ok, well that’s a point. But I think you could further stress its uniqueness by making it a less boring plan. We have all these Georgian buildings and historic laneways and the like; wouldn’t it be a lot better if they did a Powerscourt kind of thing where you stress the historical fabric, and you have a series of covered laneways and arcades giving the whole scheme a sense of being a little more upmarket?
I actually think one of the most important things they could do in Limerick to bring people into the city is to focus on aesthetic issues. I thought the city development plan was a great vision. Look how many more people frequent Thomas Street and Bedford Row now. If they focused on details like pavement, appropriate windows, lampposts, wires on buildings, and shopfronts, then Limerick could have a sense of quaintness which would draw people in. I mean it almost makes me cry to compare the potential of William Street with its reality. If you dealt with all the above issues on this street, you could have a completely unique and beautiful Georgian commercial street that people would specifically come to Limerick to visit.
@what? wrote:
im glad you brought up that analogy rumpelstiltzkin, because this argument petains to much more than fitzwilliam st. stretching out to all areas of life/ art.
I would disagree with the described restoration (see: recreation) of the sistine chapel for similar reasons of falsity and a loss of reality.
We need to have a less simplistic attitude towards history and the built fabric of our cities.
See link here for another route towards re-occupation of historical fabric, one that recognises that history is a series of intertwined continuities rather than a single, exclusive, idealised stage (set) of the buildings life.
By calling for recreation you are calling for falsity and advocting a distortion of reality, and whether the vast majority of the public notice or not is not the point.
In one paragraph you decry an over-simplistic attitude to architectural history, and in the next you make the most absolute simplification of all: between true and false architecture. Did it ever occur to you that nostalgia for a particular form of architecture – and the consequent desire to replace a relatively minor section of a huge streetscape in order to restore a sense of completeness – might be a perfectly valid intertwined element in your complex manifold of history? And that what is perceived as truth and falsity may be a lot more complex than you suggest? In relation to what exactly, other than your own gut instincts, are you positing true architecture only as that which is undertaken in the styles particular to the age, and false architecture as that which is in the style of a previous age?
If there’s a significant groundswell of support for the restoration of Georgian architecture in certain areas, an architecture which is bound up totally with most people’s sense of Dublin in the 20th and 21st centuries (not just the 18th century), then surely that sentiment is a “true” one which permits of expression by architectural means. Strangely enough, I think that nothing is more of a falsification than ideological adherence to one strand of architectural thinking when what characterises our age more than any other is the sheer multitude of strands of every conceivable stripe.
A few years ago they “restored” the Sistine Chapel, which involved not only cleaning the ceiling but also repainting many areas where the paint had flaked off. They still call it Michelangelo’s work even though some of it isn’t. It seems to me the arguments here (less obviously absurd because it’s part of the wearisome architectural orthodoxy) are tantamount to suggesting that Willem de Kooning should have been brought in to fill in the blanks in the ceiling in his own style.
@dave123 wrote:
Opera centre is like two or three times bigger and retains far more older architeture into the new Shopping mall. I’m not to sure if Eyre sq shopping centre retains this factor. Also I much prefer these type of inner city malls than out of town malls imo.
I’m not a shopper as such, but its seems more logical to have a shopping heart in the centre of the city rather than sprawling warehouses around the city, leaving the city like a ghostown.
I don’t think you’re going to bring people into the city to go to a shopping centre, when there are already shopping centre all over the outskirts. That’s the big problem here, it’s being seen as a lynchpin of Limerick’s future success. But in order to be truly successful and vibrant, Limerick has to give people what they can’t get anywhere else. Yet the Crescent shopping centre opens on Thursday and Friday nights, and on Sundays which are among the busiest times for shopping, while the city becomes a ghost town.
Limerick needs to develop particular city centre attractions to thrive – like quality eateries, pubs, specialist shops, and of course extra-curricular activities. The very least it needs for starters is a cinema, which being in proximity to many pubs and restaurants would provide a unique appeal. And then it needs to expand opening hours. I think there’s nothing that would increase the buzz than changing general opening hours to 12pm-9pm every day, if not later. You’d be amazed how many people there are who’d like to be able to go to a coffee shop at 11pm.
@what? wrote:
Replication is fundamentally wrong.
Instead of adding to history, it undermines it.
The 99.9% of people who believe the replicas are real, believe a lie.
Truth is beauty, however ugly it may be.
Well if you believe that the original streetscape had an aesthetic unity which will never be recreated by modern infill, then our dedication to beauty ought to lead us to recreating it. Even if the buildings aren’t original, they serve an aesthetic purpose as part of an integrated whole. I know contemporary architecture may, to the detriment of the city, focus on heterogeneous streetscapes as a reflection of modern times. But to apply this to every situation, regardless of context, is ideological extremism and in this situation unquestionably wrong.
I think he’s suggesting what streets should be pedestrianised. I agree with all of this except for the quays. They should be pedestrianised too. As it stands, we have a dual carriageway running down the middle of the city.
I think when you consider the piece of crap building to which that sign is attached, looking like something from a 70s slum, details like these pale into insignificance. True, there’s absolutely no attention to detail in Ireland, but there’s absolutely no attention to larger scales either.
@dave123 wrote:
The idea of just swarming incoherent development of a seriously lopsided doughnut city will turn the city ffrom a black hole inside out and will eventually take the whole city with it.
You need to have a functioning core of a city in order to expand in a universal manner. Look at the cosmos, nothing is in existence without a core. No star, planet, galaxy, country or cooporation cannot function without a core.
Actually, recent research suggests there’s a black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
I used to think I’d like it too, but it’s shite. It would have been great if it was just a cube, made of stone, intersected by a perfect cylinder.
@Smithfield Resi wrote:
Nice starting point for reasonable debate…calling holders of the opposite view idiotic.
I could equally express it as….
barrage of idiotic arguments for high rise: from the (false) claim that they would make Dublin a ‘modern city’, to the (equally false) argument that high rise buildings will increase density in Dublin, as if that were even the point.
How exactly is a low/medium rise city less open-minded?
Are you saying that architects cannot express contrast and sculptural effects in less than 15 storeys? Really?
http://thomasmayerarchive.de/details.php?image_id=86095&l=englishEqually, the uniformity of the rooflines of the grand Georgian terraces is part of their beauty, Without the need to ‘punctuate’ the skyline (god, I loathe that word)
Define substantial. That seems to be the crux of the debate….
Since you bring up the inevitable phallic allusion, is the frustration at the lack of high-rise expressed by the ‘we want it big and tall and now!’ brigade a primeaval fear of impotence? 😀
Ok, here goes:
1.Dublin is not a low/medium rise city, it is a low rise city. People are even afraid of medium rise. And it betokens an almost obsessive Victorian conservatism. I happen to think that medium/high rise makes up a good proportion of the modern architectural idiom, but apparently Dublin, with its grotty 1960s monstrosities and crumbling Georgians is above (or below) all that.
2. I didn’t say you can’t express contrasts in less than 15 storeys. But by limiting yourself to less than fifteen storeys you consequently limit the range of possible effects. I think a good modern city has a good mix of such effects, but Dublin is limiting itself to only one model.
3. Would you not call the Four Courts a punctuation? Or St. Stephen’s church?
4. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the “our buildings are bigger than your buildings” mentality. Competition is crucial to creativity. The fact is that most people in Ireland would like to have a gleaming capital city with great architecture and magnificent skyscrapers. It simply sends a message that anything others can do, we can do just as good. Yet we continue to treat Dublin as a provincial city, even as a town. It’s a capital city and it needs monumental over-the-topness.I must warn you that you’re just asking for a barrage of idiotic arguments against high rise: from the (false) claim that they would be out of place in what is essentially a low rise city, to the (equally false) argument that high rise buildings will not increase density in Dublin, as if that were even the point.
I totally agree that Dublin needs some high rise buildings. Such buildings are a crucial way for a capital city to express its openness to thinking big and remaining dynamic into the future. From a purely architectural perspective, skyscrapers create contrasts and shadows and sculptural effects undreamed of by those who are limited to a view of vast planes of five storey retail park fodder. I mean, was Georgian Dublin constructed at the same height, block after block? No. Variation was key to its success. The modern equivalent is a more substantial varying of heights – and nothing could be more contextual to Dublin than that. Anybody who surveyed Ireland’s account books for the last twenty years and then went to look at the docklands would be drawn to the inevitable conclusion that some kind of pathology is in effect here – a simple primeval fear preventing Dublin from getting it up like normal cities.
