Sometimes buildings created for the most mundane purpose can possess an unexpected grandeur. That is the case for the early 20th century collection of Iveagh Buildings near St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, and it is also true of the slightly earlier Fruit and Vegetable Market across the Liffey.
Occupying a large site of some 6,000 sq m and with its principal facades on Mary's Lane and St Michan's Street, the market is one of the city's least-known or appreciated architectural delights. This situation should now improve, however, because Dublin Corporation has just finished a £1 million-plus restoration of the building's exterior, for which the funds came from the local authority, the Department of the Environment and the EU.
The Fruit and Vegetable Market was intended to replace a jumble of unhygienic and dilapidated structures serving that purpose on Dublin's northside and first opened for business in December 1892. It was designed by the city engineer Spencer Harty and, when new, was described in the Irish Builder as being likely to "rank foremost with many of our modern buildings". While the south and east sides abut a variety of other properties, the other two frontages stand free and are notable primarily for the variety of the decorative details and materials employed.
The north side centres on the main entrance, a massive pair of gates flanked by double Corinthian columns of limestone set on raised brick bases. Above the elaborate cornicing are set the arms of the city carved in Portland stone. The main gate is flanked by two subsidiary entrances of brick topped with a terracotta frieze and cornice. Decorative terracotta is also used to strong effect along the adjoining walls in the space between the cornice and the tops of a series of semi-circular brick arches resting on granite piers. Another substantial entrance, pedimented and plastered, is set at an angle of the building on the corner of the north and east sides. The west front is treated in a very similar manner, although the lower entrance in this instance is flush with the wall and the larger gateway is surmounted by a carved Portland stone pedestal rather than by statuary. Inevitably, the interior is more functional and less decorative than the exterior. The market's most obvious charm is its lines of delicate and slender iron columns with Corinthian capitals. These support the steel trusses holding a series of wooden pitched roofs covered on the outside by slate tiles laid on batons. The central portion of the roofs on their northern face are glazed and additional ventilation is provided by means of louvres; the market is both technically sophisticated and aesthetically satisfactory.
Oddly enough, this is not so true of the adjacent Fish Market, dating from five years later and a far plainer and less attractive structure than its neighbour. Perhaps for this reason, no work, other than essential maintenance, has been done on the market and, accordingly, its present appearance is somewhat rundown.
However, appreciating even the Fruit and Vegetable Market's considerable charms has often been difficult, not least because of the purpose which it serves. This has meant that the interior is always intensely congested and that the surrounding area outside is rarely free of heavy traffic or of the debris produced by a busy market. In addition, until the recent introduction of the corporation's Historic Area Rejuvenation Programme (HARP) for the north inner city, this part of Dublin suffered from serious dilapidation, some of which is still evident in the roads and lanes running between the market and Capel Street: on the other side of the building, however, the adjacent Smithfield restoration is beginning to show beneficial results for the area. The refurbishment of such a major building would obviously have an impact on the entire district and this seems to be one reason why Dublin Corporation has now given the market's exterior a thorough overhaul, supervised by its senior executive architect Bernard Grimes.
Over the past couple of years, the walls and entrance gates have been entirely cleaned and all damaged brickwork and sculpture replaced; notable among the latter are some 24 delicate sandstone decorations at the intersections of the semicircular arches along the walls and representing the different goods being sold by the market.
The wrought-iron grilles at the top of the arch openings and above the wooden gates have also received attention: while all the original metalwork was still in good condition, it was taken down, sandblasted to remove a century of multi-coloured accretions and then painted plain black with certain decorative details highlighted in gold.
One means of bringing the building's architectural merits to public attention is through lighting and this has now been installed on the two principal facades. While the effect is dramatic, Bernard Grimes insists that his lighting design is "quite simple".
The key elements are a continuous thin strip of lighting running the length of the cornice which focuses on the terracotta frieze and a series of uplighters inserted into the pavement at the base of the granite piers. A third sequence of lights - tiny fibre-optic spots - has been discreetly introduced at the top of the piers and trained on the sandstone carvings; the pediments and sculptures above the entrances have also been individually lit.
In order that the newly cleaned and lit building may be seen to best effect, the corporation has also reordered the adjacent pavements, laying down an arrangement of granite slabs and cobbles and introducing a series of metal bollards close to the perimeter. Now that work on the exterior of the market has concluded, Bernard Grimes would naturally like to turn his attention to the interior, although this is somewhat more problematic because the building remains in constant use. There are more than 30 independent wholesale fruit, vegetable and flower traders holding stalls and conducting their business out of the market, with many of them occupying other properties in the vicinity.
Traffic congestion on the surrounding streets is an ongoing problem, for which the only solution would appear to be the relocation of the entire market to a new site out of central Dublin. This has been the practice for similar businesses in other cities such as London's Covent Garden and Paris's Les Halles.
Were the same policy adopted here, the old market could then be cleared and its interior, complete with polychromatic wall tiles, fine Corinthian columns and original granite curbing thoroughly cleaned. At the moment, the electric wiring of the building is a jumble of cables strung across the upper trusses and the paintwork of the woodwork has become terribly shabby. Bernard Grimes's personal preference would be for the market to become a retail food centre, still occupied by individual stallholders but enticing a far broader constituency than at present to this part of the city and further assisting in the overall rejuvenation programme.
Before anything like this can happen, however, an alternative site for the wholesalers needs to be found and agreement reached with them over leaving their current premises. For the moment, therefore, the chief pleasure of the fruit and vegetable market remains its exterior.
