Are Irish people aesthetically challenged?

Day Lewin · 08-06-2015 12:25PM

Beauty is a difficult thing to define, yet most of us have little difficulty in recognising it. Those exquisite villages in England, for instance: serene city streets in many towns.
But architecture always has something to do with the surrroundings - what one Irish architect called "mannerly in the landscape"
(It was a phrase that caught my eye immediately on some TV programme, years ago: unfortunately I can't remember who it was, some guy who had a practice in rural Cork, maybe)
Your house ought not to deface the natural landscape, or make a vulgar attention-seeking statement. It ought to be suited to its purpose and of compatible style with the local architectural tradition and materials. It ought to be part of the community - sustainable - partake of the village street or the country watersupply. Not invade beautiful views with aggressive novelty. Not squat as if glaring at passersby. Should occupy its own space gracefully, enjoying the sunshine, a bit of garden, making the best of what it has.

Ah, but do designers, builders, architects and planners know all this? And if not, why not? Who gets to veto?

kneemos · 08-06-2015 12:29PM

katemarch wrote: »

Beauty is a difficult thing to define, yet most of us have little difficulty in recognising it. Those exquisite villages in England, for instance: serene city streets in many towns.
But architecture always has something to do with the surrroundings - what one Irish architect called "mannerly in the landscape"
(It was a phrase that caught my eye immediately on some TV programme, years ago: unfortunately I can't remember who it was, some guy who had a practice in rural Cork, maybe)
Your house ought not to deface the natural landscape, or make a vulgar attention-seeking statement. It ought to be suited to its purpose and of compatible style with the local architectural tradition and materials. It ought to be part of the community - sustainable - partake of the village street or the country watersupply. Not invade beautiful views with aggressive novelty. Not squat as if glaring at passersby. Should occupy its own space gracefully, enjoying the sunshine, a bit of garden, making the best of what it has.

Ah, but do designers, builders, architects and planners know all this? And if not, why not? Who gets to veto?

They know it but who can afford it?

darkpagandeath · 08-06-2015 12:33PM

katemarch wrote: »

Beauty is a difficult thing to define, yet most of us have little difficulty in recognising it. Those exquisite villages in England, for instance: serene city streets in many towns.
But architecture always has something to do with the surrroundings - what one Irish architect called "mannerly in the landscape"
(It was a phrase that caught my eye immediately on some TV programme, years ago: unfortunately I can't remember who it was, some guy who had a practice in rural Cork, maybe)
Your house ought not to deface the natural landscape, or make a vulgar attention-seeking statement. It ought to be suited to its purpose and of compatible style with the local architectural tradition and materials. It ought to be part of the community - sustainable - partake of the village street or the country watersupply. Not invade beautiful views with aggressive novelty. Not squat as if glaring at passersby. Should occupy its own space gracefully, enjoying the sunshine, a bit of garden, making the best of what it has.

Ah, but do designers, builders, architects and planners know all this? And if not, why not? Who gets to veto?

No one gets a veto hence the amount of one offs.

Day Lewin · 08-06-2015 12:33PM

@kneemos - a fair question: but I think it is applicable even to very small and modest homes, just as much as to flashy new-builds.

Even blocks of flats, in theory at least, (heaven help us, LOL)

@darkpagandeath - I think someone, or some well-qualified group, OUGHT to have a veto. (Not one that can be bribed out, either)

-But that returns us to the sage words of the OP - who, in this nation, has the aesthetic credentials to be believable as a veto?

smash · 08-06-2015 12:35PM

I'm always amazed when someone builds a nice big house and then doesn't bother to paint it. Feckin concrete coloured houses all over the place.

The Backwards Man · 08-06-2015 12:42PM

smash wrote: »

I'm always amazed when someone builds a nice big house and then doesn't bother to paint it. Feckin concrete coloured houses all over the place.

I wouldn't paint a house until at least five years after it was plastered.

QuantumP · 08-06-2015 12:50PM

Re: the Americans, they obviously had an idealised preconception about what the Irish houses would be like - that I'm not defending. Its just their conversation got me thinking differently about how I viewed them myself and that's when I realised how ugly they are!

darkpagandeath · 08-06-2015 12:56PM

QuantumP wrote: »

Re: the Americans, they obviously had an idealised preconception about what the Irish houses would be like - that I'm not defending. Its just their conversation got me thinking differently about how I viewed them myself and that's when I realised how ugly they are!

When was the last time you heard of people building a house out of stone and then rendering the outside and thatching it ?

partyguinness · 08-06-2015 12:56PM

Well the Celtic Tiger certainly did not help. There was such a rush to build that any old design rubbish was good enough.

No thought or imagination whatsoever. TBH- I don't think we really cared.

Sure we were all going to sell on for a huge profit in a few months anyway so why waste the time...:rolleyes:

Teyla Emmagan · 08-06-2015 01:04PM

As a nation, we have feck all taste. Houses with big eagles on the pillars, and sunbeams on the side, cabbage palms in the gardens and PVC doors. And cobbledash! Feckin cobbledash everywhere! With probably a rusting old car around to the side of the house, leaning up against the doric columns. Not to mention the hideous colours we paint our houses - peach and green and pink FFS. And miles of ugly ribbonny bungaloes coming into every town, the entire driveways of which are covered in tarmac or wall to wall cobblelock.

You should be fined for having any of those things IMO.

ThinkProgress · 08-06-2015 01:05PM

darkpagandeath wrote: »

What where the Americans expecting ? 20 People in a horse and cart ?

Does that qualify as a dwelling?

Pikey mansion!! lol

Pumpkinseeds · 08-06-2015 01:20PM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Does that qualify as a dwelling?

Pikey mansion!! lol

Pikey mansions, sounds like the name of an inner city Dublin council estate.

Yamanoto · 08-06-2015 01:28PM

The proliferation of various shades of vomit beige pebble-dash bungalows has left us with some of the ugliest rural housing stock anywhere in Europe.

We're the Moldova of the north.

DeadHand · 08-06-2015 01:31PM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I wouldn't paint a house until at least five years after it was plastered.

Why?

darkpagandeath · 08-06-2015 01:31PM

Yamanoto wrote: »

The proliferation of various shades of vomit beige pebble-dash bungalows has left us with some of the ugliest rural housing stock anywhere in Europe.

We're the Moldova of the north.

Is there not some place down near cork famous for day glow coloured house's.

ejabrod · 08-06-2015 01:34PM

kneemos wrote: »

Naming houses something I've always found slightly odd.

I called my first house 'John'

kneemos · 08-06-2015 01:35PM

smash wrote: »

I'm always amazed when someone builds a nice big house and then doesn't bother to paint it. Feckin concrete coloured houses all over the place.

I heard someone state that if they painted the house once they'd have to keep painting it .

QuantumP · 08-06-2015 01:43PM

darkpagandeath wrote: »

When was the last time you heard of people building a house out of stone and then rendering the outside and thatching it ?

Are you serious? I don't know how to make this any clearer. I know their preconception was ridiculous. Their conversation simply prompted me to look at the houses objectively, which were ugly as fu*k.

The Backwards Man · 08-06-2015 01:48PM

DeadHand wrote: »

Why?

Two reasons.

Give the walls plenty of time to dry out, but more importantly, once you start painting you have to keep painting. A house that needs painting is a lot uglier than one that has never been painted.

loveisdivine · 08-06-2015 01:54PM

The amount of grey houses in Dublin is so depressing. Its bad enough that the skies always grey, why not make the houses a little brighter?

Pumpkinseeds · 08-06-2015 02:02PM

Stone cladding is awful and the country is littered with tacky McMansions. Has anyone else noticed the Irish lack of ability to furnish a dining room? Seriously, if I see one more kitchen that has a big rectangular space that's either empty or has a cheap looking knotty pine table and chairs thrown haphazardly in a corner I think I'll scream. Why build it if you don't know how to or intend to furnish it? It's not that difficult. That's another thing, what the fcuk is it with all the fricking pine people are putting in houses? It's awful.

osarusan · 08-06-2015 02:04PM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Two reasons.

Give the walls plenty of time to dry out, but more importantly, once you start painting you have to keep painting. A house that needs painting is a lot uglier than one that has never been painted.

Just make it with magnolia-coloured plaster so. Sorted.

Aongus Von Bismarck · 08-06-2015 02:09PM

QuantumP wrote: »

I was on a bus through Connemara and I overheard American tourists talking about their disappointment with how ugly the houses were (they were expecting thatched roofs everywhere :rolleyes:).

Anyway, I decided to try see them from a tourists perspective and was amazed with how ugly most of them are. Mustard yellows and peach pink everywhere too wtf is that about .

The houses in Connemara are disgusting eyesores for the most part. Faded and chipped magnolia paint, if they bothered painting at all. Abandoned cars in the rocky field beside the house. A collective fear of putting down tarmac in the drives of their houses', weeds and overgrown bushes in every garden. The locals must spend too much time gurning, drinking, drink driving, and staring into the distance to find the time to do their homes up.

ThinkProgress · 08-06-2015 02:10PM

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

Stone cladding is awful and the country is littered with tacky McMansions. Has anyone else noticed the Irish lack of ability to furnish a dining room? Seriously, if I see one more kitchen that has a big rectangular space that's either empty or has a cheap looking knotty pine table and chairs thrown haphazardly in a corner I think I'll scream. Why build it if you don't know how to or intend to furnish it? It's not that difficult. That's another thing, what the fcuk is it with all the fricking pine people are putting in houses? It's awful.

It's funny, when I was renting an apartment on my own a few years ago, my complete lack of interior design knowledge led me to keep things very simple and plain.

This led to people complimenting how well furnished the place was because they thought I was going for the "minimalist look"... lol

I was, but not in the manner they were thinking!

The Backwards Man · 08-06-2015 02:13PM

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

The houses in Connemara are disgusting eyesores for the most part. Faded and chipped magnolia paint, if they bothered painting at all. Abandoned cars in the rocky field beside the house. A collective fear of putting down tarmac in the drives of their houses', weeds and overgrown bushes in every garden. The locals must spend too much time gurning, drinking, drink driving, and staring into the distance to find the time to do their homes up.

Still, better than Bauhaus protuberances any day of the week.

whisky_galore · 08-06-2015 02:44PM

darkpagandeath wrote: »

When was the last time you heard of people building a house out of stone and then rendering the outside and thatching it ?

I saw an imitation thatched cottage once, built out of blocks and then they came along and stuck some yokes resembling a concrete 1/4 of a football to make it look 'lumpy'.:pac: Looked like the house had acne.

One thing we're not so good at is re-using old houses or old industrial buildings as living spaces. I know it costs way more, but the end result of some of them is fantastic. The amount of abandoned buildings dotting the landscape is something else.

Another bugbear is chipping off all the rendering off old buildings and leaving the bare rubble stone, which was never intended to be out in the open. So called 'traditional' Irish pubs are notorious for this.

darkpagandeath · 08-06-2015 03:15PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

I saw an imitation thatched cottage once, built out of blocks and then they came along and stuck some yokes resembling a concrete 1/4 of a football to make it look 'lumpy'.:pac: Looked like the house had acne.

One thing we're not so good at is re-using old houses or old industrial buildings as living spaces. I know it costs way more, but the end result of some of them is fantastic. The amount of abandoned buildings dotting the landscape is something else.

Another bugbear is chipping off all the rendering off old buildings and leaving the bare rubble stone, which was never intended to be out in the open. So called 'traditional' Irish pubs are notorious for this.

Yeah that's odd alright, Would it not be more traditional to have lime white render ?

poeticjustice · 08-06-2015 03:39PM

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

Stone cladding is awful and the country is littered with tacky McMansions. Has anyone else noticed the Irish lack of ability to furnish a dining room? Seriously, if I see one more kitchen that has a big rectangular space that's either empty or has a cheap looking knotty pine table and chairs thrown haphazardly in a corner I think I'll scream. Why build it if you don't know how to or intend to furnish it? It's not that difficult. That's another thing, what the fcuk is it with all the fricking pine people are putting in houses? It's awful.

Yeah...those people are crazy...

fatknacker · 08-06-2015 03:53PM

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

There's a house in Craughwell that has a full size ships anchor in the front lawn, kinda takes a way from the house a bit.

Or keeps it there! Like...you know?

whisky_galore · 08-06-2015 03:53PM

fatknacker wrote: »

Or keeps it there! Like...you know?

Stops it drifting and colliding with other houses?

Are Irish people aesthetically challenged?

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