The river banks of the River Liffey deserve to be more than just roads for commuter traffic. That's why I'm proposing that we widen footpaths and provide a decent cycle route running between the Phoenix Park and Dublin Bay.
Here's the text of a talk I gave in October 2012 at a City Intersections event in the Little Museum of Dublin. It probably reads better if you have a look at my PowerPoint presentation which can be viewed over on SlideShare. I'd welcome your comments.
It’s not that often that Dublin looks like Tokyo, and that’s
probably why I love this shot I took of the Liffey Quays from O’Donovan Rossa
Bridge at the bottom of Winetavern Street. The moon was rising in the East, and
O’Connell Bridge House, one of Architect Desmond Fitzgerald’s worst mistakes looks almost
appealing by moonlight. I was standing close to where the áth cliath or ford of the hurdles was that gave our city – Baile Átha Cliath as Gaeilge.
Colm Lincoln’s
book “Dublin as a work of Art” is really a story about the author’s love for
Dublin and specifically the Liffey Quays. He states:
“The Liffey, with its
long line of quays, has been central to the development of Dublin. It was to
the quays that maritime trade came and the battle over its displacement – as
bridge construction shoved port activity relentlessly further downstream –
resulted in some of the city’s important characteristics: a sequence of
cross-river axes and a long and distinctive river front punctuated by a display
of great monumental architecture.”
James Joyces’s Finnegan’s Wake also discusses the Liffey. He flirts with the river from
the opening lines to the finish. In a lovely opening line he commences:
“riverrun, past Eve
and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay.”
Of course Eve and Adam’s is the church off Merchant’s Quay,
so his book starts near to where Dublin began,
close to where the Scandinavian settlers drew up their long-boats twelve
hundred years ago.
Half a million people live in Dublin, almost two million
dwell in its functional urban region or “travel to work area”. I want to focus
on the inner city, between the Phoenix Park and Dublin Bay. I believe that the
Quays have been neglected and that radical action is needed to restore the
Liffey Corridor to a state that we can be proud of that allows it to function
as the front room of the city, and the nation.
Dublin Bay is a crucial part of the image of the city. It’s
not as accessible as it should be: the Port, the sewage plants, the power
plants, the dumps all act as barriers. They conspire to block us from welcoming
the sea into the city. When we talk about the city we need to talk about the
old city and the inner city. Twenty five years ago the centre of Dublin was
hemorrhaging its population and the inner city’s population was down to 65,000
people. The blunt instrument of tax incentives introduced in 1986 helped
reverse this trend and thankfully the city centre population grew dramatically
through the nineties and noughties.
If the Bay is the bookend to the east the Park is the
bookend to the west. Again, the relationship to the city is flawed. The city
car pound was once located at the crucial meeting point of the Park and the
city. Now it’s the Criminal Courts. That’s not the perfect civic building, but
it is a new landmark that marks the transition from green leaves to brown
brick. The River is the unifying link,
and I suggest that a few improvements in linkages, places and spaces along or
close to the river could improve the image of the city and our sense of civic
pride. I also believe that we need a Liffey Boulevard on the Quays to make it
easier and more pleasant to walk and cycle between the Park and the Bay.
I’ll start at the Phoenix Park,
the fionn uisce or clear waters of
the royal deer park that celebrates a 350the anniversary in 2012. I’ll work
downstream across Diageo Land, and The Gut before finishing close to the Hotel
that Pigeon sisters ran for cross-channel ferry passengers in the early
Nineteenth century.
Dublin’s changed a lot in the last
twenty years, and not just in terms of the built environment.
Many of those who
come to Ireland for work or education have settled close to the Liffey Quays.
Polish, Nigerian and Chinese voices are common on Dublin streets.
Fionn Uisce
The Phoenix Park is the People’s
Park of Dublin. It is well used in every season. In recent years car parking
seems to have encroached more on the park, despite attempts by the Office of
Public Works to curtail through traffic. I love this view of Dublin from the
Magazine Fort, with domes and spires in the distance. The trees have grown
since the Eighteenth century, but the city and the river can still be glimpsed
through the trees.
The Magazine Fort can be the start
or the end of the Liffey Boulevard. It’s
a neglected empty monument and could happily accommodate a bike shop, café,
museum or other activities. It apparently even contained a bakery during the
emergency. The complex deserves to be reused and more closely linked to the
city. It could even have a pedestrian and cycle link across to Lutyens’ War
Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge.
Diageo Land
Back in the early 1980’s when I
started studying architecture in UCD we undertook a fantastic project across
all five years of the course studying the Liffey Quays, and produced a book edited
by Gerry Cahill that contained our proposals. One of the projects was for a new
public Square at Heuston. In some sense that has come about, with the restoration
of Dr. Steven’s Hospital as the HSE Headquarters and the Luas stop outside the
rail Station. In Parisian terms it’s more Place de la Concorde than Place des
Vosges because of the traffic, but it works.
I look at this view from my
bedroom, and will never grow tired of it. It is stunning in all weathers. The
Liffey lies just below and it never ceases to amaze. One morning I looked down
and saw ten footballs in the mud, just beside Seán Heuston Bridge that carries
the Luas beside the station. In the Netherlands about 40% of train passengers
arrive by bicycle and a large multi-storey bike park is provided outside the
main railway station. I feel we should copy their example, and provide the same
in the Liffey outside Heuston.
The brightest signs on the Quays
tell us how many car parking spaces are available. Personally I’d prefer to
know more about the weather or cultural events, or not have the sign there at
all in an age of smart phones and in car navigation systems.
Funny things happen on Wolfe Tone
Quay. Here’s a shot I took in October 20111. The river is on the right, the
Quays on the left. The Civil Defence
depot is also on the left, and their entrance was blocked by the floods. The
following day the Quays were magically silent as engineers inspected the
damage. The crack in the quay wall restricted traffic by one lane for several
months afterwards. There may have been some traffic delays and increase in Luas
passengers, but I guess what it showed was that we can take a lane of car
traffic off the Quays without the economic life of the City grinding to a halt,
and that’s probably a good thing.
Let’s get back to Diageo. Don’t
get me started on Arthur’s Day. I’m fond of a drink myself, put painting the
town black? Here’s a view looking across the Thames at the Tate Modern, a
fantastic conversion of an old power generation station into a modern art gallery.
Here’s a view looking across the Liffey at the Guinness steam plant. Well, you
can guess the rest. Ideally I’d like to
get visitors out of the Guinness Store House, into the Tate Modern, Dublin, and
then allow them to walk gently downhill and across the new footbridge across
the Liffey and the Croppy Acre past the Luas stop and into the Museum of
Ireland at Collins Barracks. It’s the total tourism experience: St. James’s
Gate, the Tate and Irish history in one afternoon, plus a Luas to take you back
to your hotel.
Scooter Island
Scooter Island or Ushers’ Island
has seen better days. Sure, it’s got a Calatrava Bridge, but where doesn’t at
this stage? The river frontage could do with more than a facelift. Here’s Moira
House that was the Dublin home of the Earls of Moira. Had it survived the
twentieth century it would have celebrated its 260th anniversary this year but
it was demolished in the 1950s. The gate piers remain. We can do better than
this. St. Pauls on Arran Quay graced the cover of the UK Architectural Review
in 1973. The cover said “Thainig an A.R.
go dtí Baile Athá Cliath.” Inside Brown and Wright argued:
“Without question it is the quays which give topographical coherence to
Dublin. They are the frontispiece to the city and the nation: grand yet human
in scale, varied yet orderly, they present a picture of a satisfactory city
community: it is as though two ranks of people were lined up, mildly varying in
their gifts, appearance and fortune, but happily agreed on basic values.”
Thankfully the road plans drawn up
by the London consultants didn’t get the green light, but most of the Georgian
buildings were lost and replaced by Zoe pastiche.
This view of the TOP Petrol Station is the “Chuaigh an A.R. as Baile Athá Cliath” shot. If you look
across the river from St. Pauls you see this:, a monument to the
first phase of urban renewal tax incentives from the 1980s. For a time it even
graced the cover of a Dublin Corporation brochure urging you to invest in
Dublin. It would be fair to say it hasn’t aged well.
The footpaths along the quays are
often microscopic in width. However a wider footpath and bike path would still
allow for a car lane and a bus lane to be placed on Arran Quay. It is time to
reallocate road space. Ironically the City Council seems to have the budget to
completely repave vast swathes of footpath at the moment, but appears not to be
widening footpaths.
There’s a pleasant widening of the
Quays at the junction of Arran Quay and Church Street. Road engineers have
grabbed the space to fit in more traffic, but perhaps a small plaza could be
provided. Apologies for the graphics, I failed my Photoshop class, but I
suspect you get the gist of it. Further
along the Quays the magnificent setting of the Four Courts deserves a wider
footpath on the river side of the Quays, as well as besides the building
itself.
There’s a problem in how we manage
and plan public space. Architects often restrict themselves to individual
buildings. Planners fret about the relationship of buildings to each other.
However the most important job of all – planning the space between buildings –
is left to road engineers who often simply don’t have the training to mediate
between the different functions that this space must perform. They all-to-often
strive to maximise the traffic carrying function of the space, not realising
that the economic and social functions of public space are equally important.
Now that I’m on a roll about civil
engineering I need to mention left-turn filter lanes. I’ve counted about eighty
of them between the canals and they all need to be removed. They destroy the
public space of the city, converting meeting places to highways. If you maximise the traffic carrying capacity of a road the vehicles will speed up as they round the corner and economic life and social interaction will lose out.
All the these right-turn filter lanes have to go, and let’s start
with the ones along the Quays. Then we can slowly but surely reclaim the street.
It can take you three pedestrian
light phases to cross the junction at Christchurch. That is wrong. I want to
narrow the road so that it becomes a civic meeting space rather than a traffic
junction. Even on New Year’s Eve the Gardaí hustle you off the road once the
bells have struck twelve. I want to narrow the carriageways so that tourist and
Dubliners can feel that the city is their own. People are more important than
cars. Here’s how the Architectural Review saw Christchurch back in 1973. I
wouldn’t copy that, but I think we need to reduce the traffic carrying-capacity
of these junctions so that people’s voices can be heard.
O’Connell
I was never a fan of Charlie
Haughey, but I do credit him with saving Temple Bar. I sat in a crowded CIE
Hall back during some 1980s election campaign when Charlie had the wit and
conviction to say that Temple Bar would be saved. That didn’t stop the rise of
the super-pub, but at least many of the buildings and streets were saved and
many of the cultural uses that grew up there are housed in well-designed new
premises. Another rogue, Mick Wallace was responsible for the Quartier Bloom off Ormond Quay, a
charming part of Dublin where Italian is the second language. I like the locks
on the Ha’penny Bridge. I’ve no doubt that some official will remove them, but
they’re a bit of fun that adds to the interest of passing over the Liffey.
College Green is oozing with
potential, has some spectacular buildings, but is currently a traffic
nightmare. The first thing I’d like to do though is take a chainsaw to the
ungainly trees that are blocking the views of the Old Bank of Lords (now the Bank
of Ireland) and the front of Trinity College.
The next step is to replicate what
has been done in many London Square in recent years. Restrict the car traffic
and liberate the pedestrian. Then we can all breathe again.
Often Roman towns had two main
roads at right angles to each other; the Decumanus
and the Cardo. If the route from
Parnell Square down O’Connell Street and through College Green and Grafton
Street to Steven’s Green is our Decumanus
than the Quays must surely be our Cardo. O’Connell Street Bridge currently seems to
have at least eight, or possibly nine lanes of traffic running across it. It
deserves to be a civic space. Let’s tame the traffic, perhaps down to four
lanes and give space to the pedestrian in this important civic space.
Given that the city doesn’t
cherish O’Connell Street Bridge it is no surprise that O’Connell Bridge House
sports a large alcohol ad. Once as I walked down the boardwalk and English
weekend tourist stopped his mates to shout. “It’s a pub and it’s ten floors
high”. Whatever about our English visitors we clearly have an alcohol problem,
an image problem and a public space problem.
I’m interested in our definitions
of public space and place. In Irish law I can only find references to public
spaces in the road traffic acts, and public spaces in the criminal justice
legislation. Curiously in the road traffic acts a public space is somewhere
that you can have access to with your car. That speaks volumes about our
relationship to the city.
The junction beside Liberty Hall is particularly poorly designed.
The combination of cattle barrier-style pedestrian enclosures and
indecipherable road signs requires some long hard soul-searching by the city
fathers and mothers. It could be better.
I took a photo of Bachelors’ Walk
on the North Quays on St. Patrick Day, fully pedestrianised for, maybe an hour
and a half. Why not do this once a month on a Sunday afternoon so that we can
look again at our city rather than rush through it.
Aldo Rossi the late Italian
architect and urbanist said:
“The city is the locus of our collective memory… There is something in
the nature of urban artifacts that renders them very similar – and not only
metaphorically – to a work of art.”
Works of art deserve to be treated
with respect.
The Gut
The Gut refers to the stretch of
water where the Grand Canal and the River Dodder enter the sea. The development
in Dublin’s Docklands over the last twenty years has led to significant civic improvements.
The walkways and cycle lanes along the campshires as the Quays are referred to
East of Matt Talbot Bridge are a magical change in how we view and use the
waterside. Last summer I there were kayaks for rent and my ten year-old son and
I had a wonderful adventure paddling between the Beckett Bridge and the Jeanie
Johnston Tall Ship. We saw the city from a whole new angle.
Fergal McCarthy’s temporary island
installation was great addition to this stretch of the River. It made people
laugh, smile and rethink their perception of the space between the Quay walls.
I want more of these. Back in 1982 my brother-in-law Brian Vahey a stage
designer also placed a temporary island in the River Liffey. His was a wooden
pyramid with mementos of the old Theatre Royal inside. He moored it near Burgh
Quay close to Hawkins House which replaced the Theatre. That was one of my
first introductions to the River as I acted as caretaker for his island,
waiting for the drunken shouts once the pubs had closed.
Sir John Rogerson’s Quays grinds
to a sudden halt on the South Quays just before the Gut. There have been
various proposals to bridge the Gut over the years. I would like to see a
simple structure for pedestrian and cyclists that would link the city to the
bay. Once this happens, the new walkway and cycleway that I’m proposing on
Liffey corridor would inevitably find its way down to the Pigeon House
chimneys, close to where the Pigeon Sisters ran their hotel back in the 1800s. A
final stop might be the remnants of an old fortification, close to where the
infill of the bay has created a new beach. Reflecting the Magazine Fort the
wall could be adapted to house a tea rooms, visitor centre or
other activities. Pedestrians could continue down the Great South Wall to where
the city meets the Bay.
A few years ago I published an
earlier version of this proposal as part of a Green Party cycle plan for
Dublin. Many of the ideas were included in that proposal.
Now what? Well, it’s a good time
to be talking about the Liffey Corridor. The Dublin Bikes scheme is set to
expand towards the end of 2012, and that means that something must be done with
the Liffey Quays to make them more pedestrian and cycle friendly. Perhaps the
Tate Dublin and bridging the Gut will never happen, but it’s part of debate
that’s worth having.
There’s an argument to be had as to whether a cycle lane
should be beside the quay wall, or closer to the building edge. Should there be
one wide cycle lane on one quay or a lane on both quays? Should the traffic
flow on the Quays be reversed again, or made two-way? Multi-lane one-way
streets are bad for the life of the city. Would a lower 30kph speed limit
obviate the need for a separate cycle lane in the first instance? Perhaps.
Certainly wider footpaths would make our Quays more livable, and create enjoyable places.
In the meantime I’m hoping that these ideas will contribute to the debate. Let's end with a line from Joyce:
"Whish! A gull. Far calls. Coming, far! End here."
