Back to the future for M&S

SHOPPERS entering the new Marks & Spencer store on Dublin's Grafton Street after it opens at 10 a.m. this Friday are bound to experience a sense of deja vu. At first glance, all that seems to be missing from its Brown Thomas days is that cloud of perfume.

The creaking wooden floor is gone, of course, but the forest of fluted Corinthian columns are all there (even though most are replicas) as well as the coffered ceilings and, most spectacularly, the marble staircase from what hash 15,000 sq ft food hall, with its been aptly termed "the Princess Grace period".

What's really different is that the staircase now faces the main entrance and runs up to the first floor, whereas the BT version ran down to the basement. But its grandeur has been marred by a crossing beam, which means that only half of the staircase can be seen from the front door.

It looks much better from the women's department on the first floor, with balustrades above and below - and the inevitable chandelier in the centre. The men's department is even more elegant, with suits for sale in a double-height space under one of the generously sized skylights.

However, despite the introduction of much more daylight than Brown Thomas ever had, the fluorescent lighting is harshly white. On the upper levels, some of the ceilings are relatively low, but BT's once oppressive basement has been transformed into a really impressive food hall.

For shoppers who may wish to bypass the clothes, there is an escalator facing one of the front doors which leads directly to the wide aisles and separate wine shop. Its size has enabled M&S to double the number of food lines it can offer in Grafton Street.

Designed by Scott Tallon Walker, the store provides 67,000 sq ft of retail space on four floors - one more than what Brown Thomas had. It is remarkably well laid out and also very restrained, with lots of veneered wood and little sign of the striped M&S St Michael logo.

Mr Geoff Rowbotham, the company's general manager in Ireland, said he was determined from the outset to create a store in keeping with the historic nature of the building. It was never going to be just another sanitised M&S interior and, in that respect, it is a success.

All of the refrigeration plant, which could easily have ended up as a long-distance eyesore on the roof, has been installed beneath the basement. The shopfronts are authentic recreations, as are the facades on Duke Street - reconstructed from the 1850 Dublin Street Directory.

This piece of pastiche has its critics, however. "What they have done on Duke Street is to architecture what Marks & Spencer's food is to gastronomy well-presented, but essentially bland," quipped Dr Edward McParland, art historian and member of the Dublin Civic Group.

The former Bailey pub, which occupies the ground floor of the reconstructed buildings on Duke Street, has been taken over by Mr Hugh O'Regan, the cafe-bar czar, who owns Thomas Read's in Parliament Street. This time, he is planning a spit-and-sawdust job, like Toner's of Baggot Street.