Stephen's Green Centre redevelopment

The layout is awful inside and really set up to avoid going upstairs. There was some architect giving out about the renovations but didn’t like if someone had the opposite opinion as there’s was for architectural reasons. It was we know best because we’re architects and plebs wouldn’t know. The outside look I couldn’t give a fk

I always liked the uniqueness and sort of eccentricness of the place.

Im ok with a refurb but like SpanishEyes says, the lack of imagination is really horrendous. And it is akin to student accommodation as L1011 says, that sort we see up and down the country. 😵

Replacing It with a bland eyesore is not progression. Anything short of exceptional should not be considered as a replacement.

I wasn't saying anything about the politics of who built Grafton St. Just that it was the "globalised" style at the time and people fetishise these generic designs just because the have been there a bit longer.

I agree on brutalist and i dispair when architects try tell us all we are just too stupid to understand how amazing it is when its getting torn down but your average building going up these days is no better or worse than the Georgian stuff.

Of course in this case that generic modern stuff isn't good enough for the sight in question. They should be told to come back with something more imaginative.

what does 'exceptional' mean, in this context?

I like the outside of it like most people but the inside layout is terrible and confusing. Poor use of space and doesn’t flow in any way. The maintenance and cleaning must be a nightmare too with all those panes of glass.
Maybe gut the inside and try keep some semblance of the current facade?

"When it was built it was widely regarded as ugly"

By who? I was alive and living in Dublin in 1988 and that's not my recollection at all. It might have been the view of some high falutin' wangkers who fancied themselves as architecture critics, but I know when I saw it first I liked and I still like it. I like it a lot. I like it because it's a gorgeous building full of character and light that looms good both inside and outside, one of the very few attractive buildings built in Dublin in my lifetime.

And that seems to be the general view. If it wasn't the general view, there wouldn't be such anger at this horrific plan to knock it down and replace it with an eyesore with less imagination than Arsenal's attacking game.

Unlike you, I think we should have a bit more ambition for Dublin and especially such a key spot in the city's streetscape than pure "money making". How a city looks matters a lot. Modern architecture has not been kind to Dublin in that regard. Off the top of my head I can think of about three buildings built in the city in my 45 year lifetime that were a clear thumbs up. The new courthouse beside the Phoenix Park, the new Ashling Hotel just down the road from it, and the Stephen's Green shopping centre. Perhaps there are more. I just can't think of any.

I think if you're using Finn McRedmond as an opinion to back you up you're struggling quite badly. Ms. McRedmond talks about an "ugly and unloved" building. Not only is the building the opposite of ugly and unloved, but Ms. McRedmond is herself an unloved and some would say ugly columnist who only has her job as a piss poor rage baiter due to her strong family pull within the gilded circles of Irish business and media.

Fair play to the Athlone objector.