Development and preservation in Dublin

Georgian house on St. Stephen's Green
A surviving Georgian house on St. Stephen's Green, stuck between a Victorian building (picture right) and a 1960s office block Hainault House, now reconstructed (left). Over half the Georgian buildings on St. Stephen's Green having been lost since the Georgian era, with many demolished in the 1950s and 1960s .

Dublin is one of the oldest capital cities in Europe — dating back over a thousand years. Over the centuries and particularly in the 18th century or Georgian era, it acquired a beautiful and distinctive style of architecture. However, since the 1960s, Dublin has been massively re-developed, sometimes at the cost of its architectural heritage. There have been repeated controversies about what is sometimes termed "cultural vandalism" — i.e. destructive or insensitive development in the city. The first such disputes date back to the 1950s, the latest (was over Carrickmines Castle) (2005).

Georgian Dublin

Main article: Georgian Dublin

In 1932, Éamon de Valera, senior survivor of the 1916 Easter Rising and leader of the defeated anti-treaty forces in the Civil War, won power at the ballot box. With greater finances available, major changes began to take plgayace. A scheme of replacing tenements with decent housing for Dublin's poor began. Plans were proposed for the wholesale demolition of many buildings from the Georgian era, often because they were thought 'old-fashioned' and 'near the end of their life', often because they were seen as symbols of past English and British rule. The Viceregal Lodge was proposed for demolition, to make way for a new residence for the new office of President of Ireland, an office created in Bunreacht na hÉireann, the new Irish constitution of 1937 which renamed the Irish Free State Éire. Merrion Square, with its large Georgian mansions, was proposed for demolition, to be replaced on its three sides by a national museum, national Roman Catholic cathedral and national art gallery. Though plans were made, few were put into effect and those not implemented were put on hold when in September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland and the Second World War began. Dublin escaped the mass bombing of the war due to Ireland's neutrality, though some bombs were dropped by the German air-force and hit North Strand a working-class district.

By 1945, the planned wholesale destruction of Georgian Dublin were abandoned and the Viceregal Lodge (renamed in 1938 Áras an Uachtaráin) was restored as a presidential palace. (The Irish state was also in effect renamed in 1949, becoming either simply Ireland or the Republic of Ireland). However, from the 1950s onwards, Georgian Dublin came under concerted attack by Irish Government development policies. While Georgian Dublin survived 1930s plans and World War II, much of it did not survive property developers in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The historic but now impoverished Mountjoy Square suffered heavily, with derelict sites replacing historic mansions. When in the 1950s a row of large Georgian houses in Kildare Place near Leinster House was demolished to make way for a brick wall an extreme republican Fianna Fáil minister, Kevin Boland celebrated, saying that they had stood for everything he opposed. He also condemned the leaders of the Irish Georgian Society, established to battle to preserve Georgian buildings and some of whom came from aristocratic backgrounds, as "belted earls". In the 1960s, the world's longest line of Georgian buildings was interrupted when the ESB was allowed to demolish a chunk in the centre and build a modern office block. By the 1980s, road-widening schemes by Dublin Corporation ran through some of the most historic areas of the inner city around Christ Church Cathedral. The nadir of this approach occurred in 1979 when Dublin Corporation destroyed the largest and finest Viking site in the world at Wood Quay, in the face of national opposition, to build its Civic Offices for its public servants.

The 1980s—A Change in Policy

The Spire of Dublin
Dublin's newest monument, is the world's largest sculpture.

In the 1980s and 1990s, greater efforts were made to preserve Dublin's historic fabric. Dublin Corporation's road-widening schemes were abandoned. Strict preservation rules were applied, keeping intact the remaining squares, though Saint Stephen's Green of the three southern squares had already lost much of its Georgian architecture. Ironically one of the worst offender had been the Irish state itself, which rented Hainault House on St. Stephen's Green for the Department of Justice. This was built on the site of an eighteenth-century building in the 1960s. Indeed the 1960s had seen one of the earliest battles to preserve Georgian Dublin, in what became known as the Battle of Hume Street whose corner opened onto St. Stephen's Green. There an ultimately successful attempt by a property developer to demolish a block of Georgian houses hit the national headlines, and became a cause célèbre as involving students, celebrities and future politicians battled to stop the destruction. Though the original buildings were lost, the developer ended up building Georgian pastiche buildings on the site.

By the 1990s a greater civic pride and a new management team in Dublin Corporation saw changes in how the city was run; among the results was the restoration of City Hall to its eighteenth century interior (removing Victorian and Edwardian additions and rebuilds), and the replacement of the famed Nelson's Pillar (a monument on O'Connell Street which had dominated the skyline until being blown up in 1966 by republicans) by a new Spire of Dublin, the world's tallest sculpture, on the site of the old Pillar and which could be seen throughout the city.

Temple Bar

Main article: Temple Bar Dublin

The new awareness was also reflected in the development of Temple Bar, the last surviving part of Dublin that contained its original medieval street plan. As late as the mid 1980s, Temple Bar was seen as a poor, run down segment of the city, stretching in terms of length from the Old Houses of Parliament in College Green to Parliament Street, which faced City Hall, and which in terms of width stretched from Dame Street to the city quays. In the 1970s, Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), the state transport company, bought up many of the buildings in this area, with a view to building a large modern central bus station on the site, in the process replacing the medieval streets and buildings (while the street pattern was medieval, most of the buildings were not, dating from the eighteenth or nineteenth century) by one large bus station with a shopping centre attached. However, delays in providing the financing led CIÉ to rent out the buildings at nominal rents. Most of the buildings were rented by artists, producing a sudden and unexpected appearance of a 'cultural quarter' that earned comparisons with Paris's Left Bank. Though CIÉ remained nominally committed to its planned redevelopment, the vibrancy of the Temple Bar area led to demands for its preservation. By the late 1980s, the bus station plans were abandoned and a master plan put in place to maintain the Temple Bar's position as Dublin's cultural heartland.

That process has been a mixed success. While the medieval street plan has survived, rents have rocketed, forcing the artists elsewhere. They have been replaced by restaurants and a proliferation of bars which draw thousands of tourists but which has been criticised for over commercialisation and excessive alcohol consumption. Some of the more historic buildings in the area have been destroyed in this process, notably St. Michael and John's Roman Catholic Church, one of the city's finest and oldest Catholic church, which predated the repeal of the Penal Laws and Catholic Emancipation. Its interior was gutted to be replaced by a tourist-orientated "Viking adventure centre" which ran into financial problems. While the development of Temple Bar was far preferable to its obliteration under a 1980s multi-story bus station, many people have criticised some aspects of its development, arguing that the new Temple Bar tourist area has failed to show sufficient sensitivity to the potential that had existed. Temple Bar was used as a set for some of the exterior scenes in the film Far and Away.

Between December 2002 and January 2003, the Dublin Spire was erected on O'Connell Street. A 120 m tall tapered metal pole, it is the tallest structure of Dublin city centre, visible for miles. It was assembled from seven pieces with the largest crane available in Ireland. It replaces Nelson's Pillar which was blown up in 1966.

The Archer's Garage Incident

The Rebuilt Archer's Garage, Dublin

On the June bank holiday weekend, 1999, the art deco, grade 1 listed garage on Fenian Street was illegally demolished by contractors working for the O'Callaghan hotel group. A public outcry followed, and while developer Noel O'Callaghan claimed this was the reason why he reconstructed the Garage, he was in fact ordered by Dublin City Council on threat of a €1,000,000 fine and/or imprisonment. The reconstruction is far from accurate to the original.

See also

• History of Dublin

Archer's Garage Thread - http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=420