Few buildings in the capital compare in beauty with the City Hall. Designed by Thomas Cooley in 1769, the entire structure was refurbished last year by Dublin Corporation at a cost of £4.5 million. With this money, the local authority paid for the overhaul not only of the facades but also City Hall's 18th century interior.
Imagine, however, that an alternative approach had been taken: that the exterior of the building had been carefully retained while everything behind the walls was stripped away and replaced by a series of new spaces.
This might seem inconceivable except that something similar happens constantly, not just in Dublin but throughout the country as developers and urban planners consider facade retention the acceptable alternative to complete destruction.
This, it seems is what will happen to a number of listed houses on a terrace in Northbrook Road, Dublin, one of which was substantially demolished earlier this week. It is what has already happened to the Presbyterian Church on Adelaide Road in the capital, a substantial and striking building which dates back to 1840. In relation to the Adelaide Road site, Dublin Corporation listed for preservation only the church's facade, railings and steps, thereby indicating its lack of interest in what became of the interior.
Arguments in favour of facade retention are invariably based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of architectural design. It would be ludicrous to imagine that architects design the exterior of a building without any consideration for its interior.
Even the most cursory inspection of the Northbrook Road houses indicates that their doors and windows have been sited to take account of the location and size of the rooms behind.
Similarly, the basic design of those interior spaces was based on the creation of a harmonious exterior. The facade and the rooms behind are not, therefore, separate entities but instead two elements working together to create the whole. They depend on one another for the success of the complete work. Presuming to strip away everything behind a facade is to do serious and irreversible harm to the basic character of a structure; the integrity of the entire work will have suffered damage.
This is the case with the Presbyterian Church on Adelaide Road, where work began early last December on demolition of the entire structure behind its facade. The beauty of the porticoed exterior was echoed by the simple grace of its main galleried hall constructed in Greek revival style. Here was a perfect example of facade and interior being intimately connected.
For the past century, except for a brief moment during the 1980s when postmodernism enjoyed a brief flurry of popularity, the facade of a building has never been treated by architects simply as an opportunity for irrelevant decoration.
Yet this, in effect, is the consequence of facade retention; it treats the exterior as a kind of design flourish which has no association with the rest of the structure. To accept this principle is to permit not just the demolition of a building's interior but, even more dangerously, to allow that facades may be as indifferent to their context as circumstances permit. After all, if the exterior of a house is perceived as no more than a decorative afterthought, then its appearance can - and will - be treated by developers as of no consequence.
Under these circumstances, it becomes apparent that no real difference exists between facade retention and pastiche - of which there is already a disappointing abundance in this country. Both depend on the same form of visual dishonesty and show disdain for integrity of design. To permit facade retention is to believe that something should, quite literally, be taken only at face value.
Thankfully this was not the attitude adopted by Dublin Corporation in relation to City Hall where a decision was quite correctly taken to restore the interior back to the original designs of Thomas Cooley. It is regrettable that planning authorities both in the capital and across the country do not apply similar standards when dealing with applications for the redevelopment of old structures.
Facade retention should never be regarded as permissible. Either a building must be restored in its entirety or be replaced by a new structure of greater architectural merit.