Architectural Dublin - City Development / O'Connell Street Redevelopment

Architectural Dublin / City Development / O'Connell Street Redevelopment

For most people, O'Connell Street is the centre of Dublin city - its where traditionally the trams stopped and in later years nearly every bus route passes through it. Originally as Drogheda Street and then Sackville Street the centre of fashionable Georgian Dublin and in later years the centre of commercial life, O'Connell Street has been in decline since the 1960s. Up until the 1960s O'Connell Street was known for its cinemas, the GPO and Nelson's Column. With the destruction of the column and the closure of all bar one of the cinemas, the street has become a garish strip of discount stores and fast food restaurants. As the street increasingly became a no-go area after dark due to drugs and street violence, and business interests became concerned with a perceived fall in the quality amd pulling power of the street, the corporation formed a committee to come up with a development plan for the street and its environs.

O'Connell Street as it exists today is a result of its reconstruction after the street's destruction by gunboat in the 1916 Easter Rising. The street was redesigned as a cohesive series of blocks by the city architect Horace O'Rourke with consistant parpet lines and similar facade treatments and materials. This is especially noticeable along the eastern side of the street. Up until the 1960s the three most impressive structures on the street were the General Post Office and Clery's Department Store - sited on an axis running transversely across the street and Nelson's Column sited on the Henry / Talbot Street axis. The vertical emphasis of the Column was a contrast to the width and almost overwhelming length of the street - a contrast which the street now misses.

As part of the scheme, an area covering O'Connell Street, and parts of the surrounding streets has been designated for the execution of an integrated area plan. The area stretches from Parnell Square, Marlborough Street, to Westmoreland Street, D'Olier Street and College Street. Ironically it now includes the development being disputed in the Irish courts at the moment. As part of the scheme, individual buildings and groups of buildings of merit have been listed. Others that the corporation feel should be redeveloped or are in need of repair have alos been listed for attention.

The main recommendations of the development plan include:

Widening of the pavements and central mall and reducing the number of traffic lanes in either direction to two lanes
Construction of a Luas station (new tramway system) in Lower O'Connell Street.
Construction of a plaza outside the General Post Office for use during civic celebrations and events.
Extensive replanting of trees in a more geometric fashion to provide strolling boulevards in the paved areas.
A competition to find a replacement for Nelson's Column to add a vertical emphasis to the street.