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The architects were RKD Architects, http://www.rkd.ie, in association with Imagination, http://www.imagination.co.uk.
Check out http://www.guinnessstorehouse.com.
Some local reactions are at: http://www.archforums.com/NonCGI/Forum1/HTML/000429.html http://www.irish-architecture.com/aai/journal/four/marketstreet.html http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/property/2000/1005/prop14.htm http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/11/26/sticuicui02007.html http://www.sbpost.ie/property/story.jsp?story=WCContent;id-12659
The latest publication by the Heritage Council – Archaeology & Development: Guidelines for Good Practice for Developers – is a step-by-step guide to conserving archaeology during the property development process. Launched on February 19, 2001, it costs £5.
Anyone can check if a proposed deveopment is in a zone of archaeological potential by referring to the Record of Monuments & Places and the Register of Historic Monuments. Contact Charles Mount, archaeological officer of the Heritage Council, for further information.
http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/mainpage.htmlI haven’t heard of Clara Moser.
At least parts of the co-operative housing organisations in Dublin in the 1920s and 1930s were known as public utility societies. As I understand it, they were sponsored by Dublin Corporation, who provided sites – for example, in the area between Home Farm Road and Griffith Avenue. People having shared interests or backgrounds – such as Irish speakers (at Gaeltacht Park in Whitehall) – organised themselves to provide their own housing on these sites. The public utility societies were overtaken from the 1930s onwards by the building society movement, whose roots were often similar – for example, the Educational Building Society was established by and for teachers.
Ruth McManus wrote a thesis on public utility societies a few years ago for UCD’s Geography Department. I have heard that she may currently be contacted through the Regional College in Dundalk. She wrote an article in 1996 entitled ‘Public utility societies: Dublin Corporation and the development of Dublin, 1920-1940’. It is published in Irish Geography, Vol 29, No. 1, pp27-37. Try UCD’s Richview library.
You might also enquire of Mary Clarke, City Archivist, Dublin Civic Museum, 58 South William Street, Dublin 2.
It was sickening the way the crowd cheered when the explosives went off. Just like an an old-fashioned public execution.
Holl’s “art barn”, as he calls it: http://www.stevenholl.com/pages/bellvue.html
Steven Holl’s Bellevue Art Museum (Washington State), which opens next Saturday, is stained “barn red”. The comments on the choice of colour are interesting. According to an article in The Oregonian by Jeff Switzer of the Associated Press, “Holl tested more than 100 shades of red – on concrete, in sun and rain – before he chose the barn-red stain on the building today.” His project architect, Martin Cox, is quoted as saying, “It works really well: it’s very intense on a cloudy, overcast day and brings warmth under a cool, grey sky.”
Full text (no pictures): http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/news_week.ssf?/news/oregonian/01/01/nw_11art07.frame
There was an article by Judith Crosbie, ‘Dublin’s sea baths lie forlorn’, in the Irish Times on August 17, 2000 that is not available on the IT website. An extract:
‘Both the council and locals said the Blackrock baths would never be used for bathing again, and Treasury Holdings, which has had a lease on the property for the past 2½ years, said – officially – that it has no plans for its development.
‘There were ideas to have a shopping centre and a leisure facility built where the baths now stand but this idea has been scrapped. It is understood, however, that the need for parking beside the DART station could become a component of any future plan. The issue is a political hot potato due to the concerns of local residents, especially in picturesque Idrone Terrace.
‘Betty Coffey, a local Fianna Fail councillor, said she would oppose any proposal for a commercial development on the site. “They haven’t got a hope in hell of getting it. We’re not going to give a site like that out to a commercial development,” she said.’
More on traditional American barns at http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_washington/20001203wacover2.asp .
There is a report of the opening of Blackrock Baths “last month” in The Irish Builder of July 15, 1887. The following dimensions are given: men’s pool = 165 feet by 100 feet and varying in depth from 3 feet to 7 feet 6 inches; ladies’ pool = 102 feet by 54 feet and varying in depth from “a few inches” to 7 feet. The pools were surrounded by a broad promenade.
(It seems to have been a good time for swimming baths: Tara Street baths opened during Summer 1886.)
Information on three tenderers “for the erection of concrete swimming baths for the Blackrock Promenade Pier and Baths Company Limited” is given in a report in the IB issue of June 1, 1886. The design was prepared by Mr W Kaye Parry (whose architectural firm Kaye Parry Ross was later associated with the Iveagh Baths – and, as Kaye Parry Ross and Hendy, designed Archer’s Garage), MA, engineer, 42 Dame Street. Quantities were prepared by Mr H McConnell.
The article refers to both “original plans” and “amended plans”. The tenders for the amended plans are approximately 30% to almost 40% lower than for the original plans, so we can only imagine what great things (the promenade pier?) were lost from the scheme after the tenders were received.
The contractor was Thomas Ingram Dixon of Dublin. His original tender price was £2,543, subsequently reduced to £1,947. Interestingly, his was neither the highest nor the lowest of the three tenders.
The use in Ireland in those days of mass concrete was still quite novel, particularly in marine situations – although the Dublin Port and Docks authority were extrememly adept at this, through their brilliant engineer Mr Bindon Stoney, who has been called “the father of Irish concrete” by Prof J W de Courcy.
Portland cement was readily available, both locally (the Dublin Portland Cement Company upgraded its macinery in October 1886, due to “the present large demand”) and from abroad, either through agents for companies such as Vectis or direct (for example, the Port and Docks bought theirs from London’s Medway Portland Cement Company).
In a review of “West’s System of Concrete Extruction” in its issue of January 15, 1886, the IB states: “In studying concrete, there is not a vast storehouse of experience in the use of that material…” In the following year, on May 15, the IB printed a summary of a paper on “The Manufacture of Portland Cement in Dublin”, delivered that month to the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland by Arthur G Ryder of the Dublin Portland Cement Company. It states: ” … The attendance of members on the occasion was unusually large… Mr Ryder’s paper elicited an animated discussion, which lasted for over an hour…”
Any pre-1900 concrete in Ireland is today thought to be of great interest. Blackrock Baths – a pioneering work, and one of impressive durability – represents cutting edge technology at the dawn of concrete usage in Ireland.
Sorry. That should have been http://architecture.about.com/arts/architecture/cs/barns/index.htm
No doubt you’ve read ‘Images of the Past’, John Tuomey’s short take on the topic in Annex 4, published by UCD in 1982. And Niall McCullough’s book ‘Palimpsest’.
As far as I know, the physical ‘return of the big red barn’ dates from the late ’80s – in particular, McCullough Mulvin’s oblique, urban twist on the barn, published as ‘House in a Church’ in New Irish Architecture 5, the 1990 AAI Awards. Richard Murphy’s house in Co Galway, published in the RIAI’s Irish Architectural Review vol 1, 1999, also owes much to country barns.
An outline ‘history’ of Ireland’s big red barns was prepared by Ingrid Gibney in the mid-’80s as part of her 4th-year technology dissertation; it should still be held in UCD’s Richview library.
For traditional American barns, see http://architecture.about.com/msubbarn.htm.
From Sam Webb’s letter in AJ, 2/11/00:
Gehry’s Guggenheim “has done for Bilbao what Jorn Utzon’s Opera House did for Sydney, putting Bilbao on the map and drawing thousands of visitors from all over the world to this formerly run-down Basque city… it has become an icon. But it is not the only one. Just downstream crossing the Nervion River is Santiago Calatrava’s truly beautiful Volantin footbridge, designed for pedestrians and cyclists. Underground is Norman Foster’s stunning metro. Travelling around Bilbao is a delight. Along the river bank a new tram system is being built with tracks laid in grass. The whole city is being regenerated and Gehry’s building is the catalyst… “
‘Nuff said.
A pleasure, John.
There’s also a ‘blockbuster’ exhibition (with catalogue) coming up, on places of worship in Ireland – since the time of St Patrick. Put together by the RIAI and RSUA and jointly sponsored by lottery/millennium agencies in both the UK and Ireland, I believe it opens sometime around the middle of next month at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, before travelling on to Armagh and Dublin (where it’ll be on display in the OPW’s atrium on St Stephen’s Green).
A new book on historic churches of Ulster (which includes churches on Liam McCormick) will be published at the end of next month.
The Boyne Valley Visitor Centre was designed by Anthony M O’Neill, architect, of Monkstown, Co Dublin for the OPW (now Duchas?), who were clients. The builder was P Rogers & Son of Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan.
The building was ‘selected for exhibition’ in Irish Architecture ’98, the RIAI Regional Awards and was also published in some detail in Irish Architect around that time.
