The Battle For Dublin's Docklands

Most stories of property development are easily caricatured. They are always a battle of "us versus them" or more specifically, fat cats/forward-thinking modernists (depending on your point of view) versus placard-waving locals with their rallying cry of "not on my doorstep".
What is particularly interesting about the way the Spencer Dock fight has shaped up however - and it has been a fight, as lively, unpredictable and as bloody as anything you'd pay to view - is that it has gone far beyond the concerns of Docklands locals and the traditional issues of size, location and proposed use, and has opened up the floor to questions about the civic character and future of Dublin city itself.
To fill in those who have arrived after the starting bell, a thumbnail guide: the area in question, Spencer Dock, begins on the Liffey at the eastern end of the IFSC, and stretches north, across Sheriff St, between North and East Wall along the Royal Canal. The developers, a consortium with Treasury Holdings at its head, are planning 26 buildings, some up to 95 metres tall, which are to provide six million square feet of developable space.
It is when you begin to plug this architectural jargon into comprehensible, human terms, that you realise how massive the thing really is. Some comparative maths were done by Irish Times environment correspondent Frank McDonald last April. The site's 52 acres make it, he notes, "twice the area of Temple Bar," and in terms of the proposed bulk and height of the buildings, he says it "would be nothing like Temple Bar [and] more like the IFSC." He also refers to Canary Wharf: "Everything that's been built there so far, including Europe's tallest building, is less than what's been proposed for Spencer Dock."
And how does the maximum height of 95 metres translate? To give an idea: Liberty Hall, with its 17 storeys, is about three-quarters the height of Spencer Dock at its 22-storey tallest point. This has raised all sorts of questions regarding how it can integrate among adjacent two- and three-storey buildings in North and East Wall - most of them residential and several of them listed - and the tremendous impact it is going to have on Dublin's skyline. Perhaps most contentiously, any building over 40 feet tall at Spencer Dock will be visible over the Holles Street Hospital at the city end of Dublin's Georgian Mile; at 95 feet the tallest of the Spencer Dock buildings are more than double that.
Interestingly, the proposed National Conference Centre (NCC) at Spencer Dock, which is meant to be the focal point of the entire scheme and a Dublin City landmark, is shorter than Liberty Hall by 25%.
The height issue, however, is one which will almost certainly be resolved in favour of the objectors, if the scheme goes ahead: architect and overall site-planner Kevin Roche has said that from a design perspective, he doesn't mind lowering the buildings in the face of a consensus. "I am not a height freak," he insisted at the An Bord Pleanala hearings. "I have always wanted to keep this as low as possible."
What the developers may think of the mooted reduction in height is another matter. It has emerged that the entire reason for the height, and massive square footage, of the buildings is not based in civic-minded design but is so that the resulting revenue, from the offices, apartments, hotels, parking and other amenities within, would help allay the cost of the loss-making NCC building and, in the words of Dublin Corporation's architectural consultant Michael Lowe, "give more value to the developer".
The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), in response, have made their view clear that the development should be assessed purely by reference to planning and not economic considerations.
Such considerations however may well be at the heart of whether Spencer Dock goes ahead. A representative of the developers suggested that any reduction in height may mean the lowered buildings will have to be further bulked out widthwise in order to retain their square footage. This in turn may mean the loss of parts of the planned ground-level open areas such as the public square or the podium; and this density of buildings-versus-open space may not be deemed acceptable to An Bord Pleanala. Alternatively, it may mean scrapping the NCC, the most expensive and least profit-generating element on the site, a decision with serious ramifications.
There are also those who have taken issue with the design and layout of the site itself, claiming that it lets Dublin down from a city-planning perspective. Firstly, the DDDA's master plan for Docklands aims for "a good mixture of public and private housing in developing areas" rather than "repeating the mistakes of the past where such housing was ghettoised." No social housing of any kind has been mooted for Spencer Dock. Another controversial element of the design is the aforementioned "podium" - a proposed plateau on which a fair amount of the site will be built, raised two stories above ground level, at the centre of which is to be a public plaza. The DDDA have suggested that the podium would "effectively privatise or semi-privatise" the area. They also say it would be visually "hostile to street users," which is understandable when you recall that a lot of North and East Wall itself is only two stories tall. They are instead calling for a more "normal street pattern" which would "integrate the development into the city."
Architect Roche has explained that the idea of the raised podium came from the desire to provide children who might live in the complex and in the surrounding neighbourhoods with a safe place to play, away from traffic. Finally, as with any major planning process relating to the capital, more abstract issues have been raised about whether the size and character of the proposed buildings "fit", aesthetically and architecturally, into the size and nature of Dublin city. The developers and their champions make no bones about the fact that the complex is very bold and international in style, reflecting not the Dublin which now stands but, perhaps, the Dublin of the future.
Martin Pawley, an architectural journalist speaking at the hearings in favour of the scheme, enthused that Spencer Dock is a brave project, which would give the city an opportunity to reflect its new prosperity and international-mindedness; and which would provide Dublin with its first completely modern, twenty-first century quarter. He, and others, have additionally rallied round architect Kevin Roche, arguing that it is well over time for Dublin to receive a "major landmark building" from one of the 20th century's most noted designers. Sam Stephenson, architect of Dublin's Central Bank and the ESB building in Fitzwilliam Street, likened Roche at the hearing to the many giants of Irish artistry and literature who have had to go elsewhere in order to find opportunity and recognition, and whose time has come to figuratively return home.
For his part, Kevin Roche, a native Dubliner who left Ireland for the States in the '40s, has produced a lifetime body of work which any number of his contemporaries would hold up as a yardstick of excellence and innovation. He is perhaps best known for buildings like the Ford Foundation in Manhattan - with its enclosed high-roofed mini-garden and surrounding glass-walled office spaces - and the same city's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he reinvented the museum's original turn-of-the-century architecture, gallery spaces (including the famous "baby temple" room) and vistas onto the surrounding Central Park with great care and imagination. The buildings which tend to be consistently cited internationally as his best work are characterised by their creation and use of open space; clean lines, light warm colours and unobtrusive panels of glass; and the integration of public parks, conservatories and greenery into their designs.
Perhaps most significantly, Roche is lauded for his evident respect for the surroundings of his buildings, and a sensitivity to the quality of life of those who live and work within and around them. He has been described by more than one of his peers as the embodiment of "responsible architecture".
In relation to Spencer Dock itself, however, some have expressed the view that the sense of interaction with the surroundings and concern for quality of life which characterises Roche's best work is not to be found in the Docklands scheme, replaced instead by an aggressive and unremarkable style of centre-city business architecture which is completely non-specific to Dublin or Ireland.
Fintan O'Toole expressed this in his column in the Irish Times on 10th March. "Those very qualities that make him a great architect are precisely the qualities whose absence makes the Spencer Dock scheme such a disaster," O'Toole wrote. "In stark contrast to the specificity and sensitivity of the Ford Foundation building, it seems to fall from outer space and land by accident in a Dublin that might as well be Kuala Lumpur, Dallas or Hong Kong."
But what about Ireland's new role as a major international player in business and information technology? Are not "skyscrapers" and their ilk the only way forward? Martin Pawley has suggested that Spencer Dock would be "an aesthetic and economic breakthrough for a city too long held back by its own past." He also said that "these buildings are instruments of commerce," and that they were "perfect machines for working in."
In response, the DDDA have made reference to other European cities with strong contextual setting similar to Dublin, who would have characteristic, period architecture and who are also undergoing an economic boom, and how they are handling development and city planning for the 21st century. Of various comparable cities, the DDDA's Terry Durney says, "none have sought the transfer of transatlantic imagery . . . but have exploited their [own] very attractiveness to entice investment and skilled personnel. I think as visitors we would be very surprised to hear if Vienna or Amsterdam proposed to import the type of development now proposed here."
In his acceptance speech for the 1982 Pritzker Architecture Prize, Kevin Roche said that good architecture has at its centre the "hope that what we are doing is not only sane and useful and beautiful, but a clear and true reflection of our own aspirations". This, among other things, will be what an Bord Pleanala and the Corporation will be deciding between now and July.