Dublin apartment blocks with outdoor stairwell towers
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Hey, just wondering if anyone has any information on this design, it can be seen all over Dublin and seems rather unique both within Ireland and in general. Most modern apartment blocks now have an indoor “lobby” area, but even most older ones which are accessed by communal balconies tend to have internal stairwells in the centre of the building.
The design I refer to however is one I’m quite fascinated by – balcony accessed apartments with an adjacent “round tower” stairwell, with little bridges leading out from this to the balconies.
An example of this design can be seen on Kevin St:
http://builtdublin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/bd-mosaic-kevinst.jpg
Another slightly different variation can be seen in Dolphin’s Barn, at Seagull House:
Does anyone know what era these originate from, who designed them, and why they seem to have had a relatively brief (time-wise) application, in that all of the complexes using this design have other distinguishing features which place them all very clearly in the same category and time-period – with no other widespread outdoor stairwell designs that I can think of?
And secondly, does anyone know why in some cases (such as Seagull House above) pairs of these blocks were built, but only one of them had such a stairwell, while the other block had an internal one? Another example of this was the now-demolished Chamber Court, which I believe had two blocks, one with a stair tower and one with an internal stairwell.
Always been fascinated by these and regard them as a very “Dublin” thing, you know you’re at home when you see this style all over the place 😀
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