Why are our museums a bit crap?

wakka12

server down wrote: »

How much of that was of real architectural interest though? Every era knocks some buildings down.

Sadly a large amount of it was great architecture, dominic street, cuffe street, kevin street, charlemont street, gloucester triangle, summer hill, were all beautiful grand townhouses. Among dozens of other interesting streets. Many in poor condition due to neglect certainly but still great architecture.

The ilac centre currently sits on the grounds of what were 8 or 9 different bustling little market streets, it looked like temple bar

And every era knocks down some but this is an exceptional era in that everything was knocked down and replaced with buildings of extremely inferior quality. No other generation so far has done this. Victorians demolished georgian buildings but built them better .
And no this is not a case of us simply not appreciating the architecture and we will regret it when its gone. No other era in architectural history has been defined by its cheap use of materials, lack of sense of place within each building, no relation to context, mass production of construction units with little thought put into the buildings meaning, appearance, context etc . All bad things that point to architecture of very little merit. And you need only look at the repulsive exteriors of 1945-1980 buildings to see that.
Architecture is improving on average but nowhere near where it was pre ww2 in terms of quality or attention to detail.

server down

By this era do you mean the post war era until and including now? Or specifically the 60-80s.

Even in Britain there were threats to the architectural heritage in that era. They were going to tear down Bath.

I don’t agree that all Victorian architecture was better than Georgian either.

wakka12

server down wrote: »

By this era do you mean the post war era until and including now? Or specifically the 60-80s.

Even in Britain there were threats to the architectural heritage in that era. They were going to tear down Bath.

I don’t agree that all Victorian architecture was better than Georgian either.

Im mostly referring to 45-85 yeh, but architecture is only progressing slowly since then still. Still very bland, often very little thought put into it, but at least its environmentally more sustainable and doesn't look bad.
And yeh I know, its by no means unique to ireland what so ever. Doesn't make it any better in my mind, pretty much every country made huge mistakes in that regard. But doesn't make it okay

pinkypinky

I think you're being over the top.

We can't keep everything just because it's old, and many 19th century building were tenements in desperate condition without modern plumbing.
Dublin is a fine city with clearly delineated periods of expansion in terms of architecture, and plenty of attractions that brings the tourists all year round. It's a tragedy that ESB knocked the part of Fitzwilliam St of course.

wakka12

pinkypinky wrote: »

I think you're being over the top.

We can't keep everything just because it's old, and many 19th century building were tenements in desperate condition without modern plumbing.
Dublin is a fine city with clearly delineated periods of expansion in terms of architecture, and plenty of attractions that brings the tourists all year round. It's a tragedy that ESB knocked the part of Fitzwilliam St of course.

Many of them were not tenements. Cuffe Street and Kevin Street for instance were wealthy business areas in good condition. There was a lot of opposiion from business owners to the demolition of their business in charlemont area too. And of course wood quay was demolished without good reason also.
Its not over the top, lets not try to justify the cultural crimes committed by Dublin corporation, absolutely heart breaking stuff

A vast amount of georgian dublin was demolished due to greedy land developers and corrupt local city government

feargale

The best stuff from Woodquay went on extended loan to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark many years ago. Has it ever come back?

server down

So back to Dublin as a tourist spot. I did it twice when actually living abroad. Came back with a gf and other friends once and friends another time. Once when living in the U.K., once in the US. So brits and yanks. In the latter case we toured Ireland but I’ll stick to the Dublin trip.

Both lasted about 3 days. That’s the first thing - city breaks aren’t that long.

In both cases we did one or two things a day but not like ten. Tourists will visit a museum. Take a bus. Go to a exhibition. Shop. Visit a gallery. Visit a cathedral. A zoo. A botonical garden. Possibly watch a show. See a famous book in a university in the centre of the town. Walk the skyline of a famous stadium. Even go to a cinema (although I think that’s a waste).

In general though during the day you do one or two of these. At night you want a good meal and some nightlife. During the day also some food will be taken. Dublin has fine eateries and world famous pubs.

This short trip makes the comparison between Dublin and London and other larger cities moot. It probably means you can go back to London more often and do the 100s of things you didn’t do (I do that with Paris) but most people will visit a city once or twice. And Dublin has plenty to do for 2-3 days. Twice even.

It also has more fun things to do in the city in terms of getting around. The Viking splash tour is cool but the other buses are interesting too. It has history too, the Norman, vikings and English. Even us. And not just grand histories. Like London - if you are on the buses - they will point out the birth places of the city’s famous antecedents. Wilde lived here. Yeats there. Bram stoker wrote Dracula there. Swift was a deacon there. And so on.

It’s architectural delights are there if more hidden than London or certainly Edinburgh. But it’s enough.

What doesn’t matter is traffic. It’s a walkable city. Unlike London. Tourists will probably be staying in the centre and basically see not much more than a circle cebtered on the diameter from o’connell St to Stephens green. That you took more than an hour to come to work doesn’t really matter to tourists. Traffic is horrible in London and Paris too.

The weather doesn’t matter. Dublin isn’t the west coast (where also weather doesn’t matter), it gets about 60% less rain. London and Paris are neither dry nor hot spots. Nor is Edinburgh.

Then there’s the coast etc. On both trips I took people on a walk through howth - that coastal walk. That impresses everybody but particularly Londoners. Walking the heaths with a friend he said “is this really part of the city?”. If he had that in London he would visit it every week. It takes 30 minutes to get there from the centre.

Anyway it’s a fine city break. Lots to do.