ARCHITECTS AND architectural historians have joined the Arts Council, An Taisce and four members of Aosdána in objecting to radical plans for the modernist Bank of Ireland headquarters on Baggot Street, Dublin.
A consortium headed by developer Paddy Shovlin and financier Derek Quinlan, which bought the complex in 2006 for just over €200 million, is seeking permission to add two floors to its nine-storey and four-storey blocks and a single floor to the five-storey block.
HKR Architects, who have designed the proposed “regeneration” of the bank’s head offices – which were added to Dublin City Council’s list of protected structures last year – are also proposing to enclose much of the plaza with an atrium containing new lift shafts.
The four Aosdána members – poet Seamus Heaney and artists Louis le Brocquy, Patrick Scott and Seán Scully – say they consider the bank as “one of Dublin’s finest 20th-century buildings” and they oppose plans to “make radical alterations to it”.
In a short letter to Dublin City Council, which was submitted on their behalf by award-winning architects de Blacam and Meagher, they call on the planning authorities “to respect in full the protected status of the fabric and curtilage of the building”.
Under the council’s listing, what is protected includes the external facade of the complex, which was completed in phases between 1969 and 1978, as well as the public open space/plaza formed by the three blocks – although not the building interiors.
Designed by Scott Tallon Walker, the Bank of Ireland was heavily influenced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Seagram Building on New York’s Park Avenue, completed in 1958 – notably in its use of Delta manganese bronze curtain walls.
Several objectors, including An Taisce, quote the Architectural Review, which hailed it in 1973 as “almost certainly the purest example of the [Miesian] style in Europe’s offshore islands [and] probably one of the most sensitive uses of the style anywhere”.
Elizabeth Hatz, a professor of architecture in Stockholm, says in her letter that the bank’s offices are “amongst the finest of their kind in Dublin and in Europe” and the proposed alterations would “destroy the whole carefully balanced ensemble”.
This view is echoed by Dr Edward McParland, leading conservationist and lecturer in art history at Trinity College Dublin, who says of the bank that there is “a palpable sense that the architect has designed every aspect of the building, from detail to whole”. His colleague Ellen Rowley describes the complex as a “total work of art”, saying she strongly objects to the plan to increase the height of all three blocks and “shockingly, cover much of the original plaza with an oversized glazed atrium”.
The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, which usually does not comment on planning applications, has submitted an observation saying it “expects the city council to evaluate this application with the appropriate level of rigour for a protected structure”.
Though the RIAI says it supports considered interventions in such structures, “careful regard should be had to the considered massing of the three blocks, the relationship with the existing streetscape, the public spaces and the material and detail of the exteriors”.
The Arts Council, which also rarely enters into the planning arena, says in its letter that the proposed development would be “significantly injurious to the existing buildings and will irrevocably alter their material and architectural character, which must be protected”.
It goes on: “The addition of glass boxes to the roofs and a glass atrium between the blocks is materially contrary to the architectural spirit, ethos and character of these protected buildings [and] will have an unbalancing effect on the elegant proportions.”
The Architectural Association of Ireland, which is run by younger architects, says: “We fail to see how the proposed development is compatible with the Bank of Ireland’s historical significance and . . . strongly recommend that it not be granted planning permission.”
Architect John Meagher says any suggestion that the alterations were reversible was “ridiculous” in that they included “the demolition of the entire north facade [and] the destruction of whole sections of cladding to all blocks with new openings and new structures crashing into it”.
The proposed stair and lift towers, bridges, “crude glass skin” and supporting structure would “obliterate” the main block and much of the other two. “To draw parallels with world-class interventions such as at the Reina Sofia [Madrid] and the British Museum is ludicrous.”
