The built legacy of the boom years has left us with a number of buildings worthy of the term 'outstanding architecture', writes FRANK MACDONALDEnvironment Editor
SO WHAT have we got to show for all the money we had – and spent – during the boom?
The construction industry was in overdrive for a decade, churning out several hundred thousand new buildings across the length and breadth of Ireland, but is there much we can be proud of as outstanding architecture?
Not much is the answer. We’re left with housing estates all over the place – as bad as anything built before, in many cases – a countryside littered with vulgar “McMansions”, big-box retail sucking the life out of town centres and far too many tax-driven hotels with not half enough “bednights” to fill them off-season.
Consultant engineers have made a home industry from the design of motorway overbridges, some of which are superb – notably the Boyne Bridge on the M1 by Roughan O’Donovan. But the motorways have provided the sinews of suburban sprawl; Co Meath alone will end up being traversed by no less than four of them.
Croke Park is unquestionably the finest legacy of the boom. The realisation by the GAA and John Sisk of architect Des McMahon’s vision of transforming a ramshackle accretion of stands into an amphitheatre for Gaelic games was partly funded by the State; that it has since hosted both rugby and soccer internationals is a bonus.
Lansdowne Road is now being rebuilt, at much greater cost (€168 million) to taxpayers, as a swirling stadium designed by HOK Sport Architecture in association with Scott Tallon Walker (STW). It is very regrettable, however, that the pitch will be too short and too narrow to permit the IRFU and FAI to return the GAA’s hospitality.
But at least we were spared the madness of the “Bertie Bowl” planned for Abbotstown, off the M50. Other millennium projects that didn’t quite work out as planned included a digital countdown clock in the River Liffey, known as “The Chime in the Slime”; it couldn’t be read by passers-by because of a build-up of green algae.
Some things simply don’t work, like the four metallic “pavilions” erected on Capel Street bridge that were finally removed last year.
It’s also been a very long time since the gas braziers atop the 12 lighting masts in Smithfield have been fired – apparently because it costs €200 an hour to keep them lit; they should also be taken down.
Another new element of Dublin’s public realm (designed by the same architects, McGarry Ní Éanaigh) is much more successful. The Liffey Boardwalk has brought people closer to the river and really comes into its own during the summer. But we’re still waiting for a plan to re-make the quays, now that the juggernauts are gone.
The Millennium Footbridge, by architects Howley Harrington and structural engineers Price Myers, is appropriately deferential to the Ha’penny Bridge. And like all new bridges, its transformational impact on how people move around contributed in no small way to the success of developer Mick Wallace’s Italian Quarter off Ormond Quay.
It might also have fed pedestrians into Meeting House Square had it been aligned slightly to the west. But then, getting alignments right has never been our strong suit. Just look at how Cow’s Lane in the west end of Temple Bar – another boom period development – fails to address the rear façade of ex-SS Michael and John’s Church.
Other bridges that have made a big difference include the cantilevered Seán O’Casey Bridge in docklands, by architect Cyril O’Neill and engineers O’Connor Sutton Cronin, and the rather overblown James Joyce Bridge at Blackhall Place, by Santiago Calatrava. Still under construction is Calatrava’s swing bridge at Macken Street.
The National Conference Centre at Spencer Dock is well advanced – some 20 years after the project was first mooted – and its architect, Kevin Roche, will hopefully live to see his first building in Ireland completed in September 2010.
Also under way is the 2,000- seat Grand Canal Theatre, designed by starchitect Daniel Libeskind. This theatre will anchor Grand Canal Docks, which has already been transformed beyond recognition by a swathe of new apartment and office blocks as well as a colourful square by landscape designer Martha Schwartz. However, the new hotel alongside is a travesty of the original scheme by Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus.
Docklands in general would have been a lot more successful in urban design terms if the general height of buildings along the Liffey quays had not been given a “crew cut”, as former city architect Jim Barrett put it. And now it’s unlikely to get either Foster + Partners’ U2 Tower or STW’s Watchtower, as a result of the deepening recession.
Cork has its Elysian Tower and Limerick has Riverpoint and the Clarion Hotel as totems on the Shannon, but despite numerous high-rise plans, Dublin has yet to surpass Liberty Hall.
Ian Ritchie’s Spire in O’Connell Street is much taller, but it’s a monument rather than a building, and became a surprisingly popular symbol of the booming capital. The re-making of O’Connell Street was not without controversy either, with Green Party people threatening to tie themselves to the old plane trees. Its new paving will have to be dug up to install a Luas line and perhaps a metro station at O’Connell Bridge while redevelopment of the Carlton site as “Dublin Central” is likely to take a lot longer.
Patrick Street in Cork was also transformed into a more pedestrian-friendly environment, with Beth Gali giving it a touch of Barcelona, and Limerick, Galway and Waterford also got new paving schemes. And despite huge controversy over the scheme for Eyre Square by Mitchell + Associates, Galway’s principal public space is much better for it.
Many of local authorities availed of the boom to provide themselves with new civic buildings. Architecturally, the most notable are Fingal County Hall (designed by Bucholz McEvoy with BDP), Offaly’s Áras an Chontae (ABK), the extension of Cork City Hall (also by ABK) and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Hall (McCullough and Mulvin).
The universities did well, particularly Trinity College and UCD, with a range of new academic buildings and research institutes designed by some of our best architects. O’Donnell + Tuomey’s Glucksman Gallery at UCC, lyrically placed in the wooded landscape beside the River Lee, is the finest example of what was achieved with private sponsorship.
Cork School of Music now luxuriates in an impressive, very well-equipped new building by Murray O’Laoire levered by a tortuous public-private partnership project, which taxpayers will be funding for decades. Much better value was Wexford’s wonderful new Opera House, designed by Office of Public Works architects and Keith Williams.
Other public projects in which we can take real pride include the restoration of Dublin’s City Hall by Paul Arnold and the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens (another OPW project), the Millennium Wing of the National Gallery (Benson and Forsyth) and the Department of Finance in Merrion Row (Grafton Architects).
Last autumn, Grafton won the first “World Building of the Year” award for their Bocconi University Faculty Building in Milan – a tour de force by Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell. Their schools in Ballinasloe and Carrickmacross give the lie to the Minister for Education Batt O’Keefe’s batty idea that architects aren’t really needed to design good schools.
Leisure centres, such as the new one in Ballyfermot by McGarry Ní Éanaigh, are also among the welcome legacies of the boom. So too are new community centres like Brookfield in Tallaght, which won the AAI’s Downes Medal last year for Hassett Ducatez, or O’Donnell + Tuomey’s playful new building on St Mary’s Road in East Wall.
Wealth generated during the boom was used wisely by some to restore some of Ireland’s neglected stately homes, most notably the late Tony Ryan’s work on Lyons Demesne in Co Kildare. Others such as Carton House in Celbridge, Killeen Castle in Co Meath and Lough Rynn in Co Leitrim became the centrepieces of manicured golf resorts.
Of all the new developments that encapsulate the Celtic Tiger, Dundrum Town Centre is probably the most potent. Designed by BKD for Joe O’Reilly’s Castlethorn Construction, it perfectly expresses Ireland’s conversion to Mammon in much the same way that 19th century Gothic cathedrals once symbolised our devotion to God.
