Is Irish architecture very conservative?

wexie

I made a few comments on this thread today and it got me wondering.

The main thing I said that got me wondering is that I feel in general Irish architecture seems to be pretty conservative overall to me.

I wonder though is that a fair assessment or have I just not been in the right places?

I grew up in Holland where you'll find such gems as these that are pretty well known :

Cube houses



Not too far from where I used to live are these houses, that don't look particularly special from the front :
https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.5554295,5.0442365,3a,75y,51.3h,85.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sa4Za8s2ZsSGAEvIvJbfPRQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

They look a lot different from the back :
https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.5553668,5.0453238,3a,60y,230.92h,88.71t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3vGR0hoA9bBmNufFfb1rKA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

And from the top :
https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.5553734,5.0447549,154m/data=!3m1!1e3
(I think these were built the guts of 20 years ago so it's not a particularly new thing either)

there's these : https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.5667925,5.0112392,127a,35y,10.46h,45t/data=!3m1!1e3

All patio bungalows.

These are in a pretty normal provincial town in Holland and there would be little examples of 'different' pretty much all over the country.

So I'm wondering if I'm right in thinking Irish building tends to be fairly conservative?

And if that is the case why? Is it down to the planning laws and/or building regulations or does the general public just not want different or adventurous architecture?

I'd especially appreciate thoughts from the professionals here, do you get to design and build what you'd like to or are you compromising to either your customers wishes or the regs?

Effects

Cost? Try to build anything out of the ordinary and the price skyrockets.

Squall Leonhart

wexie wrote: »

I'd especially appreciate thoughts from the professionals here, do you get to design and build what you'd like to or are you compromising to either your customers wishes or the regs?

"Give me as much as I can get, for as little as I can get away with" is the general way this works here. Clients don't want to spend money on visually interesting buildings, they want to fit as many offices/houses etc into a building whilst doing the bare minimum that they need to do in order to be compliant with building regulations.

Outside of companies looking for flagship buildings, or the OPW etc looking for fancy public buildings, nobody in Ireland seems to want to pay for anything interesting.

sydthebeat

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

"Give me as much as I can get, for as little as I can get away with" is the general way this works here. Clients don't want to spend money on visually interesting buildings, they want to fit as many offices/houses etc into a building whilst doing the bare minimum that they need to do in order to be compliant with building regulations.

Outside of companies looking for flagship buildings, or the OPW etc looking for fancy public buildings, nobody in Ireland seems to want to pay for anything interesting.

+1

thats it in a nutshell

coupled with a lack of architectural merit in the local council planning application process.

Effects

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

nobody in Ireland seems to want to pay for anything interesting.

Or else they just can't afford it. Building is really expensive in Ireland.

Effects

sydthebeat wrote: »

coupled with a lack of architectural merit in the local council planning application process.

Do you mean the council don't want anything of architectural merit?
I was told the opposite when I was applying for PP.

But the amount of people who think all new builds should just be a pastiche of what's around it I find quite high, especially in the older generation.

sydthebeat

Effects wrote: »

Do you mean the council don't want anything of architectural merit?
I was told the opposite when I was applying for PP.

But the amount of people who think all new builds should just be a pastiche of what's around it I find quite high, especially in the older generation.

No

what i mean is that there is none, or very little input, from an architectural view point on the vast majority of planing applications in the country.

Only a small select few councils have in house architects, and its that profession who are educated to critique the architecture of a proposal. Personally it pains me when planners try to get involved in the architectural design of a proposal. In my experience they are more 'logical and pragmatic' orientated in their approach, and these traits are not conducive to determining good or bad architecture. Now, of course thats a generalisation by me, but it comes from my experience. There are planners out there who are good are critiquing design, but they are very rare.

We only have to see decades of "bungalow blight" tract design been given permission all over the country, followed by the (not much better) plan-a-home generic designs for the mc mansion era, to see evidence of this.
Planners only recently have design guides for rural dwellings, and while better than nothing, they seem straight jacketed by these guidelines.

so its not that they dont want anything of architectural merit, its more that they dont condone bad design often enough, or they steer clear of refusals on the basis of ugly design....

Lumen

sydthebeat wrote: »

so its not that they dont want anything of architectural merit, its more that they dont condone bad design often enough, or they steer clear of refusals on the basis of ugly design....

The civil service is rules-based for lots of reasons, not least that subjectivity opens the door to corruption. "Ugly" is difficult to be be objective about.