60s and 70s office blocks - love them or loathe em?

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

I think you've got that wrong! Wasn't the PP office on the North side of the street? The one across the road was some EU building, and then it became a temporary PP office for a little while when they demolished the original one.
I used to do some work in the PP office, so I'm pretty sure about this :pac:
Where is the PP office now though?

Haha oh right! I just always heard it being called ' EU passport office redevelopment' on skyscraper city and forums so I assumed..I guess you'd know better on this one though :P

The Berkeley in Trinity is pretty cool. Always liked it.

Yourself isit wrote: »

It wasn't just Dublin. During the 60's and 70's the most complete Georgian city in Europe - Bath -was under threat from brutalist and "modern" redevelopment. It was a time when there was a contempt for the 19C in general and a fetishing of the car. It's hard to believe that the descendents of the people who built they city wanted its destruction. No post imperial reason there.

And it wasnt just the UK and it wasnt just europe it was the whole world. Theres very few extremely old buildings in the world, humans have strived for whatever was considered modern ,throughout history. People in the 17th and 18th centuries went about redevloping medieval cities and widening streets for instance. and even today the exact same pattern is repeating, we are ridding our cities of most buildings built post ww2 as we don't consider them modern, aesthetic or fit for purpose despite the preceding generations before us thinking other wise.
And I can guarantee you that the next generations after us will hate most of the buildings we built during our lifetimes and some other style will be considered the right one

I am probably one of a few people that has an appreciation for 1960s and 1970s architecture. For example, I like Hawkins House. Most people loath it. And, what I like is the fact that little seems to have changed since it was built. If the interior is described as "dated," it can only mean that it has (some) original features. Great! I read an article recently that mentioned a penthouse flat that hasn't been used since the 70's, so the decor won't have changed since then! It is a building that I'd love to have a look around, but that's very unlikely.

I think Apollo House is inoffensive. Ok, it doesn't appeal to many, but I like it. Again, it's somewhere I'd like to look around, but it has been done up inside in recent years, yet retains the odd original feature. College House is probably the lesser documented of the three buildings on that site. But, it's probably worth a look inside too.

It will be a shame to see these go. Personally, I'd like to see Hawkins House completely refurbished, rather than torn down. This was in the plans before, but they have obviously been shelved in favour of completely developing that land.

I am happy to say that I was able to go to the top of Liberty Hall during one of the Open House events, something which was a dream come true for me. I've always had a love for that building, so I couldn't turn down an opportunity to go up to the balcony level. Inside is a bit dated, but I guess it's a good thing.

Other buildings like Busaras, O'Connell Bridge House or some of those older office blocks around Mount Street are fine. I know O'Connell Bridge has undergone refurbishment in recent years, which is fine. Rather than just demolish these older buildings, it could always be possible to just do them up. Then again, certain factors would prevent this. The above are just some examples.

If anyone wants monstrosities, go and have a look at the tall apartments opposite The Coombe Hospital. These are buildings that should be demolished.

Yourself isit wrote: »

What would you have there? Pastiche? There's no architectural consistency there.

There are more options out there than pastiche or else poor design that clashes with its surroundings. Modern architecture can be completely sympathetic to historic surroundings and even improve the area.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/f9/6c/2f/f96c2ffd14b38676bf7ce8d5190df866.jpg
It just matches the street despite the fact it looks completely modern , its called good design, something we are lacking in here in Dublin

Regardless , that building on Dame street is just horrible and would be horrible no matter what its context is. Its just extra offensive because its on an otherwise nice looking street, beside our castle no less

Zaph wrote: »

That is the single most inappropriately located building in the city. You have a courtyard full of fine old buildings with this monstrosity made up of slabs of concrete where you can see (presumably intentionally, for some bizarre reason) the joins and it has those weird distorted curved windows. I still don't understand how they even got planning permission for it. It might be OK-ish in some more modern development, but Trinity most definitely isn't the place for it.

I imagine that a lot of the support will have come from the attraction of juxtaposing an entirely modern, rough hewn and frill free building against the antecedent styles.

Yourself isit wrote: »

They can (and should) get rid of the worst of the new stuff. Just as we are getting rid of Hawkins house.

Sometimes though there's no reason to replace the past. Central Paris should look like it does now in 1,000 years, I hope. Catastrophe apart.

This is quite amusing if you consider that, apart from certain landmark buildings, Haussman started the relaying of Parisian streets and a complete rebuilding of its buildings in the 1850s, ie it's not that old and is the product of one of the largest building clearance projects the world has ever seen. Unlike the aftermath o the Great Fire of London whereafter the original street layouts were preserved, medieval Paris was cleared and a new 19th century Paris was built.