It was the illicit demolition of Archer's garage on Fenian Street over the 1999 June bank holiday weekend by hotelier and property developer Noel O'Callaghan - still, incidentally, a director of Bord Failte - that put a spotlight on the fate of important buildings from the 20th century.

Just as the value of many fine Victorian buildings was not recognised until after 1950, we have been extraordinarily slow to acknowledge the breathtaking architectural legacy of the last century, which is why so few of its buildings in Ireland have been listed as protected structures.

There is a rather ad hoc Twentieth Century Society, based in Dublin, but it seems to be preoccupied exclusively by neon signs, such as "Why go bald?" on Dame Lane - beautifully restored a year ago by Taylor Signs Ltd. But the society will surely have to broaden its scope to assume an active role in saving buildings, too.

The latest threat of demolition hangs over the Wiggins Teape building on East Wall Road. Last April, the Collen Group had no problem persuading Dublin Corporation to grant planning permission for a substantial office development on the site, clearing away all but the columns and entablature of the building's entrance portico.

This was more than artist and local resident James Hanley could take. When neither An Taisce nor the East Wall Residents' Association was prepared to intervene, he lodged an appeal with the support of Shane O'Toole, Irish representative of DOCOMOMO, which is concerned with protecting buildings of the Modern Movement.

Not that Wiggins Teape falls into that category. Built in 1931 for the Gallaher tobacco company, it was designed by John Stevenson, of the Belfast firm of Samuel Stevenson & Sons. A regular visitor to Dublin, he was also responsible for Boland's Bakery on Lower Grand Canal Street, since reconstructed as the Treasury Building.

Stevenson, who served as president of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects from 1939 to 1943, was steeped in classical architecture, according to Mr O'Toole, as evidenced by the "skillful massing, composition and detail of the facade" of Virginia House, which was the original name of the Wiggins Teape building.

Mr O'Toole pointed out in his letter to An Bord Pleanala that its facade to East Wall Road - a central two-storey block flanked by long single-storey wings - includes one of the earliest known uses here of reconstituted stone, "and for that reason alone would be of importance".

It is also of some historical interest as the building dates from an era of protective tariffs on tobacco, which led the major cigarette companies to build their own factories in Dublin. In a letter to The Irish Times last July, Mary Bryan, the Irish Georgian Society's very active conservation officer, said the Wiggins Teape building should be treasured and preserved as one of the "relatively few outstanding buildings of the last 100 years".

Mr O'Toole strongly disputed the Collen Group's contention, in its environmental impact statement, that new office blocks of up to six and seven storeys would improve the amenity of East Wall Road. Arguing that the facade should be retained in its entirety, he said the proposal to keep only part of the central portico was "an outrage".

All of this, not least Mr Hanley's appeal, has taken the Collen Group by surprise. Its in-house architects and other advisers "did a lot of homework", as the appellant himself accepts, to minimise overshadowing and overlooking two-storey houses in the immediate vicinity. The last thing they were expecting was a planning appeal.

But Mr Hanley, who says he has a "passionate interest" in 20th century architecture, did not want Wiggins Teape to suffer a similar fate as Archer's garage. He believes it is of sufficient architectural merit to be listed as a protected structure and should be preserved as "an integral and important element of the East Wall streetscape".

Even the Collen Group's EIS rates its demolition as a "negative impact" of the proposed office development, though it says this would be mitigated by retaining the portico.

Though Wiggins Teape is unlisted, Mr Hanley is relying on the appeals board to take into account its decision some years ago to refuse planning permission to Irish Nationwide for destructive alterations to the landmark mid1960s Carroll's office building on Grand Parade - even though it, too, was not listed for protection.

Dublin Corporation, in deciding to grant permission for the Collen Group's project, also appeared to take little or no notice of its own stated policy "to encourage the appropriate rehabilitation, renovation and re-use of older buildings which, though not listed, may be considered to have some artistic, architectural or historical merit".

Last August, An Bord Pleanala refused permission for a five-storey L-shaped office block, designed to wrap around the longpromised reconstruction of Archer's garage on Fenian Street, on two grounds - that it failed to respect the integrity of this Grade 1 protected structure and that it would introduce an "abrupt transition in scale".

The appeals board is clearly taking the Wiggins Teape case seriously. For a start, it has deferred making a decision on Mr Hanley's appeal until mid-January. It has also requested the Collen Group to submit additional information indicating why the site was chosen for redevelopment and what consideration was given to alternative schemes.

Furthermore, the board asked the Dublin Docklands Development Authority to submit its observations on the appeal - and its brief but pointed letter, penned by planning director Terry Durney, should boost Mr Hanley's case - because it takes issue with the scale of the proposed office development and its impact on the area.

Though the authority recognised that the scheme was "an expression of a move towards the continued regeneration of the area", it would have preferred a proposal that would have retained the admittedly unlisted East Wall Road facade, which it said had "character", and "incorporated it sensitively into a new development" on the site.

Mr Durney's letter cited section 7.2 of the Docklands Master Plan (1997), which says that, in areas of prevailing low building heights, new development should follow a similar pattern. "The proposed development, consisting of up to six and seven storeys (exclusive of plant), does not conform with these policies", the letter said bluntly.

The developers have been given a deadline of November 30th to submit the additional information required by An Bord Pleanala for its assessment of Mr Hanley's appeal. Should it decide to uphold his case, the Collen Group will have to go back to the drawing boards to devise a scheme on the lines suggested by the development authority's letter.

Tragically for Dublin, the appeals board never got around to giving its verdict on whether Pelican House on Mespil Road, one of the finest office developments from the 1960s, should be saved. In that case, unlike the present one, the single third-party appeal against Treasury Holdings' plan to demolish it, was withdrawn before a decision was made.