‘Amazing' plans for Dublin's Sheriff Street include offices and a hotel. Amazing for whom?
Nevertheless, Dublin 1 represents the beating heart of life in the capital, along with the Liberties in Dublin 8. These are areas that hold our stories, culture and character. Residents, businesses and social spaces can trace their roots across centuries, alongside the immigrant communities now contributing hugely to contemporary culture.
Dublin 1 and Dublin 8 offer examples of what bustling, diverse urban ecosystems actually look like when, as the urbanist Jane Jacobs put it, they encapsulate the 'sidewalk ballet' of functioning street life. Some of the few streets in the capital that can authentically claim to reflect the essential features of what Jacobs described as the 'marvellous order' under 'the seeming disorder', are in both postcodes, including Parnell Street in Dublin 1, and Meath Street in Dublin 8.
In a recent article in the Business Post, the chief executive of An Post and chair of the Dublin City Taskforce, David McRedmond, declared: 'Dublin 1 can become one of Europe's most happening neighbourhoods.' This statement ignores the area's existing vibrant culture and community. Happening for whom?
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'If we transform the core, there are other amazing adjacent plans such as Ballymore's to completely rebuild the Sheriff St area from Amiens Street to Spencer Dock,' McRedmond wrote.
'Amazing' is subjective. These plans include large office blocks and a hotel, along with build-to-rent apartments. So, 'amazing' for whom?
Statements about rebuilding the Sheriff Street area can come across as insensitive because of the context of how the needs of the area were generally disregarded during the development of the IFSC. That left a legacy of existential fear within the community that it might be bulldozed once more.
In a follow-up interview with the Dublin Inquirer, McRedmond said he was referring to plans about public space, and would 'hate to think that anyone would feel in any way insecure about their homes'.
But, fundamentally, the future of this area should not be about more commercial development and expensive apartments, which few people in Dublin 1 can afford, but a grassroots approach that extends across public housing, amenities and facilities that meet the social, cultural and economic needs and aspirations of this unique part of the capital and those who live there. Underserved and under-resourced communities are not development opportunities.
Cities are also about streets. It's unfortunate that so much contemporary development across the city results in hostile architecture that sucks life out of places, when we could instead be focusing on streetscapes with a sense of place and human-scale architecture.
This cuts to the heart of conversations about 'regeneration' in Dublin 1. When it comes to 'potential', we have to differentiate between what is shared urban space presenting opportunities for all, and what looks like displacement through corporate gentrification. Ambitious plans with vision need to happen. For neighbourhoods, that's about listening, not declaring. In landmark buildings, it's about a coherent mission and purpose.
This brings us to the GPO on O'Connell Street. First of all, it is unfortunate that parts of the building – over 75 per cent of it currently vacant – have not already been utilised as short-term cultural use in a city starved of both community centres and spaces for artists and collectives to meet, work and create.
Secondly, the Government's recent communication about 'mixed-use' incorporating retail and offices raised more questions than it answered. If you don't actually have a plan, don't toss out something vague and random. It's no wonder the vacuum was then filled with outrage about the building's historic importance being undermined.
The GPO should become neither shopping mall nor commercial offices. It represents a brilliant opportunity to create a landmark engine of creativity for Dublin that can inspire and facilitate generations to come. By creating something that both reflects and hosts contemporary Dublin – while taking inspiration from the positive aspects of entities such as the Southbank Centre in London, Factory International in Manchester, Kulturbrauerei in Berlin, Viernulvier in Ghent (and I could go on) – an ambitious, inclusive project would transform cultural activity in the city, alongside the Dublin Port Company's plans for the Artist Campus. The building's historic significance can also be preserved and expressed with a museum of revolution on its ground floor, which could also include a people's canteen.
In tandem, Aldborough House – vacant, and on An Taisce's list of most-at-risk buildings, despite it being one of the finest Georgian buildings in the capital – should become a community and cultural space specifically for the communities of Dublin 1.
The GPO is O'Connell Street's gem. We should be aspiring to create a world-class centre of culture, for and by the people. Let our diverse communities lead neighbourhood development and let artists inform the opportunity the GPO presents – just as so many of them urged our republic from the realm of the imagination into reality.
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