Modern Buildings - Your Views?

JupiterKid

So most of us are probably aware that many modern office blocks built in the late 20th century replaced beautiful historic Georgian buildings, in Dublin 2 and 4 in particular. An entire street, Mount Street Lower, met the wrecking ball in the late 1960s for office blocks.

Many if not most people do not like modern office buildings very much, and now as the 2020s approach, many of the 1960s, 70s and 80s buildings are themselves being replaced by bigger steel and glass structues. As the pressure for urban redevelopment intensifies, buildings seem to have shorter and shorter life cycles.

But are the new buildings replacing them all that much better? And surely there are a few examples of late 20th century structures worth preserving, like Busaras (1953), the American Embassy (1964), the Miesian Plaza on Baggot St (1972), the Berkeley Library in Trinity College (1967) and the former Central Bank (1977) to name but a few.

Thoughts? And should we have a much more ambitious vision of building skyscrapers of architectural note in Dublin and Cork?

BDI

More efficient buildings. Wahey imagine being warm and saving on your heating bill.

Ray Palmer

Pretty sure mount street lower was knocked down in the early 80s as that is when the office blocks were built.

Busarus has a preservation order on it including the interior.

Your Face

I work in Building Services.
On the Georgian buildings and indeed any building - if its not being properly maintained, it will deteriorate.
At a certain point its not feasible to renovate it and its a more efficient project to build a new structure to the exact spec needed.

riffmongous

JupiterKid wrote: »

So most of us are probably aware that many modern office blocks built in the late 20th century replaced beautiful historic Georgian buildings, in Dublin 2 and 4 in particular. An entire street, Mount Street Lower, met the wrecking ball in the late 1960s for office blocks.

Many if not most people do not like modern office buildings very much, and now as the 2020s approach, many of the 1960s, 70s and 80s buildings are themselves being replaced by bigger steel and glass structues. As the pressure for urban redevelopment intensifies, buildings seem to have shorter and shorter life cycles.

But are the new buildings replacing them all that much better? And surely there are a few examples of late 20th century structures worth preserving, like Busaras (1953), the American Embassy (1964), the Miesian Plaza on Baggot St (1972), the Berkeley Library in Trinity College (1967) and the former Central Bank (1977) to name but a few.

Thoughts? And should we have a much more ambitious vision of building skyscrapers of architectural note in Dublin and Cork?

Did you run this thread before JK?

It depends what you want out of architecture I suppose, stuff that just looks 'nice' to the vast majority or stuff that's interesting. I spend a decent bit of time in Vienna and there the vast majority of the buildings look amazing with their Baroque facades.. but after spending a while there you stop noticing it due to familiarity and it's the one-off buildings done in different modern styles that you actually notice. So for Dublin I would like to see a lot of the ones you mentioned kept, really just for variety and interest rather than on aesthetic merit

Ubbquittious

It is all about utilitarianism and pragmatism now. Anything of architectural merit is too costly to build so they all go for the glass cube style and minor variations of it.

The shorter destroy and rebuild cycle is definitely a thing. In croydon they want to destroy and rebuild a shopping centre that only opened about 15 years ago

whisky_galore

You know those tours of Gaudi buildings in Barcelona, or in the US the Frank Lloyd Wright or Art Deco building tours?

I doubt if there will be any sightseeing tours of 21st century soulless utilitarian glass boxes designed by nobodies.
People are beginning to cop that environmentally these are a disaster.

I have a sneaking regard for Busarus, it looked well fresh out of the box but Bus Éireann has it looking like the filthy depressing place that it is.

JupiterKid

The good...

Miesian Plaza (former BoI HQ) built 1972




The bad...

Lansdowne House, Ballsbridge - built 1967




And the downright ugly...

Hawkins House, Dublin 2. Built 1963, to be thankfully demolished in 2020.

The Tetrarch

A monarch, a dictator, a head of religion builds the nice stuff with no regard for cost.
The plebs suffer to pay for it.
In a modern economy businesses build for function, not glory.

0lddog

Your Face wrote: »

I work in Building Services.
On the Georgian buildings and indeed any building - if its not being properly maintained, it will deteriorate.
At a certain point its not feasible to renovate it and its a more efficient project to build a new structure to the exact spec needed.

+1 to this



@JK Its a while since I was in those three buildings but none were designed with raised floors. I'd say all three are a pain in the @r*e to use.

buried

Dont like them. Especially modern day skyscrapers. Look at the City of London's skyline.
Looks like a gigantic woman's bedside table, tubes of cream, lipsticks, perfume bottles. They're planning on building a thing that looks like a stuck up mascara brush next.

Tell me how

I agree with those that say that older buildings would have become very costly to maintain as well as likely being less efficient in terms of heating and so on.
I think the 'form over function' element is something which we do not look at well in terms of planning buildings. One of the primary focuses of architects seems to be to design something which stands out and while understandable, it can lead to a mish mash of designs some of which look better than others.

One of the most impressively designed concepts on a wide scale I think I've seen was that of the Eixample region in Barcelona which consisted of repetitive design structures but while being functional, also, were aesthetically pleasing.

I have two major problems with design today. One, the artists impression at the outset rarely is reflective of the reality and two, the use of materials such as wood panelling which if not correctly treated or maintained starts to look very dated very quickly. And not in an authentic manner.

JupiterKid

There are a few modern era buildings in Dublin of architectural merit, amongst most of the rubbish that was built between 1950 and 1990.


American Embassy, Ballsbridge (1964)



Busaras (1953). The first major modern building in Dublin city centre



Berkeley Library, Trinity College (1967)



Grattan House, Lower Mount Street (1972). Brick clad structures from the late 20th century have generally aged much better than concrete and glass ones, IMO, and this building was very ahead of its time for the early 1970s.



Molyneaux House, Bride Street (1973)



Former Central Bank, Dame St (1977)



Treasury Building, Grand Canal St (1991)