Cork: a city I've always liked a lot

Right of Reply . . . but poor urban design is having a negative impact on its fabric , says Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

Owen O'Callaghan's piece last Thursday's in Property must be welcomed. Whatever about its scathing tone, I'm glad that he didn't take his own advice to ignore what I wrote the previous week about the poor architectural quality of some recent schemes in Cork.

We need more public debate in Ireland about architecture and urban design.

And since property developers play such a significant role in commissioning new buildings, it is always good to get their views on the record - particularly as so few of them are prepared to speak out.

Yes, the piece I wrote was negative, about Mahon Point and Merchants Quay shopping centres and the new development by O'Callaghan Properties on Lavitt's Quay, as well as other schemes, such as the recently completed office block on Lapp's Quay.

Mr O'Callaghan accuses me of "pontificating". Yet most of the architecture columns I have written in this supplement over the years have been positive, highlighting the good work done by architects in Ireland - including Cork, which is a city I have always liked a lot.

I do not, as he suggested, hold any resentment of Cork and its success because I happen to be a Dubliner. Indeed, I have argued more than once that Cork should be at least twice its size (the same goes for Limerick and Galway), to counterbalance Dublin's dominance.

I have also condemned the Government's outrageous decision to overlook Cork for decentralisation. Instead of recognising the city as a real asset by relocating 920 public servants there, they were to be dispersed throughout the county, from Clonakilty right around to Youghal.

In previous articles on Cork, I wrote positively about the successful re-making of Patrick Street by Catalan architect Beth Ghali, the superb Glucksman Gallery at UCC by O'Donnell and Tuomey, and how Cork's year as European Capital of Culture would focus attention on its potential.

It is against that backdrop, on the strength of four trips to Cork this year, that I was dismayed to find evidence - in the form of poor quality buildings - that the tired old "anything is better than nothing" approach to urban renewal seemed to be asserting itself in the city.

Every city has a character that makes it special, a genius loci or "spirit of place". In Cork's case, this is bound up with the River Lee and the way in which buildings address its quays, full frontally and with sharp edges. It is part of the essential Cork and cannot be discounted.

This is not, as Mr O'Callaghan maintained, a "formulaic mindset", but rather a recognition of the character of the city. New buildings fronting the river must, therefore, address the quay primarily; they should not be designed in a way that gives equal prominence to side streets.

His own development at 21 Lavitt's Quay is a mistake in that context. Not only is it grossly overscaled, but it celebrates the corner as if it was addressing two spaces of equal status - even though one is an 18th century river landscape and the other is merely a service lane.

By doing so, it severs the continuity of the quay and erodes the character of the city. The same applies to the new office block on Lapp's Quay and even to the Clarion Hotel, even though it is obviously very welcome as a new place to stay in the heart of Cork.

On the issue of scale, I have never suggested that building heights in the centre of Cork - or of Dublin - should be limited to two or three storeys, as Mr O'Callaghan claimed was my "credo".

That would be nonsensical. But a little more respect for context wouldn't go amiss.

It will be interesting, and instructive, to see his plans for the Adelaide Street area. Will the shopping centre he wants to build there be inward-looking like Merchants Quay, or will it take on board new ideas in retail circles by retaining the tight urban grain with open-air malls? Yes, Cork has seen an unprecedented level of development in recent years.

But its "previous atrophied state", as he described it, meant that the city managed to retain much of its fabric and was relatively unsullied, until now, by bad architecture and even worse urban design.