Let’s demolish Dublin

It appears that Dublin City Council is planning on forging ahead on reducing the speed limit in the city centre to 30 kilometres per hour and will, no doubt, introduce a London-inspired congestion tax designed to squeeze money out of motorists and further reduce working class mobility – all in the name of saving the city from the thing that makes it what it is: its inhabitants.

This wrongheaded scheme is simply the latest expression of a ‘Dublinstalgia’ that has resulted in a timid and backward approach to planning and urban design – the results of which are what you might, if so inclined, describe as a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”.

The fact is, Dublin needn’t have a traffic problem in the first place – the city’s dysfunction has been designed by its bureaucratic masters.

Whether in the name of road safety or the environment, onerous restrictions on motorists such as physical obstructions in the form of ramps and endless traffic lights and psychogeographic no-go zones act to not only deaden the city – the world’s great cities such as New York, Paris and Rome are car cities – they also fail in their objectives. Countless studies show that too much road furniture, such as signs and traffic lights, cause drivers to relax too much, thus actually increasing the frequency of accidents. Environmental concerns such as air pollution are real enough but are not best dealt with by trying to make people’s lives slower and more uncomfortable.

Of course, there are plenty of narrow ‘roads’ in Dublin that are barely suitable for a pony and trap, let alone busses, cars and a tram. This is a problem. The answer, though, is simple: knock them down.

Consider the difference between the capital and another Irish city: Belfast. Unlike Dublin, Belfast was significantly blitzed during the Second World War. In addition, like almost every sizeable town in the British polity it was also subject to redevelopment during the 1960s. While in true ‘Ulster’ style this was done with an eye toward dispossessing the nationalist population, it also resulted in something that Dublin sorely lacks: the rudiments of an actual road infrastructure.

Let’s start by getting rid of the roadblock that is Trinity College – the entrance building and a few others could stay – and putting in a decent road and a proper public park. That would make the city centre a lot more tolerable. Next up, a few French-style under-street tunnels for cars – forget the Metro, we’ll get to that eventually and a single stretch of track was a stupid idea in the first place. (While we’re on the subject of trains, opening the unused underground rail interconnector between Connolly and Heuston stations would cost literally nothing, by the way).

Ireland has a hypocritical attitude to architectural conservation anyway. Superb examples of modernism are allowed to spall and fall to bits while every pompous pseudo-classical stone wedding cake is worshipped as a masterpiece worthy of international status. Cork County Hall, a stunning piece of modernism designed by Patrick McSweeney was turned into a glass box by Shay Cleary. It’s a beautiful glass box, but if conservation was important then it would still feature McSweeney’s concrete cruciforms and not glass curtain walls. Dublin’s Liberty Hall, which really needs to go back to having transparent windows, is to be replaced with another nice, but uninspiring glass box. The Busáras, designed by Michael Scott, meanwhile, is a wonder that is ignored by the public largely because it is in desperate need of a good scrub.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Dublin ain’t Paris. There are plenty of buildings worth preserving for posterity, even the odd entire street, but to argue as many do that the city is somehow sacrosanct and must be saved from development is an obscenity rooted in nothing more than romantic snobbery. The truth is that the ‘Dublinstalgics’ may love the buildings but they hate the people that use them. Even the best examples of Georgian Dublin are crushed under the weight of the pomposity that their well-heeled and fanatical devotees ooze. Cities are places for people, not for buildings.

As for new buildings, why are so many of them not only uninspired but lacking even in good design that would give the city a real presence? The Ulster Bank’s ‘minhattan’ complex on the Liffey is almost good – but not quite, more of a sky-botherer than a skyscraper. Bono is a colossal arse with a colossal ego to match, but at least if the U2 tower is ever actually built we might have something resembling a skyline.

In truth, Trinity College will never be flattened but there are plenty of other brick and stone sacred cows in dire need of slaughtering – let’s not let nostalgia stand in the way of progress.

Jason Walsh is the editor of forth. Previously he wrote about architecture for a living.