A carbuncle on the bunion of Irish Architecture



From the Irish Times Letters Saturday March 24th

Madam, - I disagree with recent correspondents' criticisms of the new offices next door to City Hall in Dublin - and I say this as a former planner and city architect. The new office block is a superb piece of avant-garde architecture, sensitively handled by its architects, and it fits comfortably in with its classical neighbours. - Yours, etc,

BILL DELANEY, Castleknock Park, Dublin 15.

I don't know what drugs our Billy is on (but I'd definitely like to sample some) or whether his irony runs so deep you'd need that yoke they used for the Port Tunnel and half the population of Warsaw to dig it out. But if he thinks these two buildings fit together I can understand why he's a former city architect (or perhaps not).



















As a regular in The Oak I watched this edifice rise from its footings with enthusiastic anticipation having been promised by my mate Eamo, who works for the Corpo, that it would be an 'exciting development in the remodelling of public space on Dame St'. This, it seems, was architect speak for something that looks like a branch of Top Shop uprooted from a windswept shopping precinct in Essex.

Still, it sets Eddie Rocket's off a treat and as I stagger onto Dame St it makes me think it's Christmas every night. And in my life it usually is....