john white
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Yes Snag
It’s very depressing. The interiors of the cinemas are long gone. Those brown aluminium
eclosures on the Dart bridges – I presume they were installed for safety?There must be a better way of preserving the lovely style and make them safe. Surely?
I’d like an answer to your question too actually. I’m sure there are loads of recently listed 20c buildings. Wasn’t the inside of the IFC bar in Dublin listed or something? Then they tore it out and put in lots of cheap looking wood. “Yeah, to make it look OLD.”
Is there any practical way in which a pure admirer of architecture, not practising by any stretch, can help to put pressure where it matters in conservation and development matters?
John
From BBC website:
BROADCASTING HOUSE OPENS
The BBC considered sites in Trafalgar Square, the Haymarket and Park Lane. Portland
Place was chosen when the home of James Watt, the inventor, was demolished. The
1933 yearbook says there are 800 doors in Broadcasting House – one for every person,
more than one radiator per person, one clock to 8 persons and 8.125 light bulbs per
person. This art-deco ‘liner’, opened by John Reith is now a listed building.Yes, that’s the watercolour design I’ve seen.
It’s the main reason I’m interested in him.
Though he seems to have been an accomplished
painter too.Collins Barracks have a couple of his pieces of furniture – a chair and coffee table.
I’ll search about the web and see what I come up with. Perhaps at the BBC site.
Thanks Paul
John
Hi there
No other ideas at the moment. Just that usually the stepped gable facade in this country just seems to appear on really crappy cheap heaps. Like garages, church halls etc. Just stepped concrete blocks I suppose.
I know St. Kevin’s Hall in Blessington and hundreds of others [former Ballrooms of Romance I shouldn’t wonder ] have it. Behind this is a shed with a barell corrugated steel roof.
I am very interested therefore because of this in seeing more quality, imaginative use of the idea – as are you.
By the way – did Raymond McGrath’s BBC radio interior designs ever achieve reality?
John
Well, I’ll have a think about that.
There certainly seem to be hundreds of cheap
old buildings with stepped facades – church halls etc. I suppose it depends on how general you want to be. If you just want excellent – that’s harder obviously.There’s a Bauhaus/Deco-ey [I’m no expert ] building in Drogheda – near the CBS i think.
A hospital? Not sure. It’s quite special apparently.There’s a another huge building in Galway City on the side road from the Train Station & Hotel at Eyre Square to the Claddagh. It’s very Bauhaus, maybe leaning toward Deco.
Hmmm… what else?
The cinema/pool hall on Wexford Street?
I think over the week-end.
John
Yep,
I must agree [ though it is only a mock-up ]
It looks slightly ridiculous. Perhaps the framework should be finer?I can imagine it now in the guide books. Come see the spectacular new Liffey Bridge {pictured here }bringing Ireland into the 21st century – or some tripe like that.
“Gee honey – it looks like the coathanger bridge in Sydney – let’s go see!.”
They see it…
“What the hell? Call that a bridge? It’s tiny.”
Actually, come to think of it – finer frameway would lessen the bulkiness at the expense of substantality [a word? ] but would perhaps only increase the illusion of hugeness in photos.
I don’t know – who the hell needs it anyway?
John
Oh that’s right – wasn’t it the longest unbroken Georgian Street in the world?
Some crap documentary about him years ago
related how on his way to school he was hit
by a big bone thrown out of a doorway whilst on the way to school. With a chuckle the
narrator said “Well, Sam got his revenge on the woman years later when he built the Bord
Na Mona offices on Baggot street.” Ha Ha.
