GARRETT CORMICAN,
Madam, - I am a little dismayed by Micheál Ó Nualláin's letter of February 13th in which he suggests that the spire is not a monument of "vertical emphasis, an elegant structure of the 21st century contemporary design which relate to the quality and scale of O'Connell Street as represented by the late 18th-century and 20th-century architecture".
Surely he is being disingenuous. The Spire has a vertical emphasis and it relates exceedingly well to its surroundings. The dominant style of the buildings on O'Connell Street might be described as neo-classical. Classicism, as I am sure Mr Ó Nualláin, will agree, is characterised by balance and symmetry. While the individual buildings on the street are classical, the overwhelming horizontality of the street as a whole left it patently off balance. The verticality of the Spire provides the perfect counterpoint.
The longer the street, the taller it needed to be. Operating as a focal point, it serves a similar role to the great obelisks of Paris and Rome. It nods to the past but is also of its time, exploiting the tensile strength of a relatively light 20th-century material - stainless steel.
Mr Ó Nualláin rightly suggests that the will of the people was ignored when it came to erecting this structure and thank God it was so. When did public opinion ever produce a single work of great art? It nearly cost the city Hugh Lane's priceless collection of modern paintings. W.B. Yeats lamented the "beating down of the wise and great art beaten down". On this occasion, Dublin Corporation showed greater foresight. For once, philistinism and begrudgery lost. - Yours, etc.,
GARRETT CORMICAN, The Dunes, Portmarnock, Co Dublin.