{"id":263130,"date":"2026-01-25T11:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T11:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/263130\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T11:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T11:15:10","slug":"dublins-stephens-green-is-getting-a-bold-new-look-but-not-a-great-one-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/263130\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin\u2019s Stephen\u2019s Green is getting a bold new look. But not a great one \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank Gehry<\/a> might have smiled knowingly at the latest proposal for Stephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre<\/a> and the face it would present to one of the best-known corners of Dublin, between the Fusiliers\u2019 Arch and the top of Grafton Street. This is because it is essentially an exercise in deconstruction, the architectural trend that the late designer championed so successfully for decades.<\/p>\n

In this revised plan by the award-winning architects O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey<\/a>, the shopping centre \u201csurrenders some of its internal floor area\u201d to make way for \u201ca sculpturally eroded corner \u2026 at this critical juncture in the mental map of the city\u201d.<\/p>\n

The aim, they say, is to create \u201ca civic space to enhance the visual connection from Grafton Street to Stephen\u2019s Green\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 1988 building, with its multifaceted dome and decorative facades, has been the focus of controversial \u201crejuvenation\u201d plans<\/a> by DTDL Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company linked to the billionaires JP McManus and John Magnier, since January 2023. In July 2025 An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la<\/a> refused permission for a revised scheme, saying it \u201clacks a strong sense of original aesthetic\u201d. <\/p>\n

BKD Architects had proposed a layered glass box projecting over an enormous void that would have been the same height as the Fusiliers\u2019 Arch. They described the three-storey box as \u201ca dramatic floating form\u201d, but I likened the entrance beneath it to the \u201carchitectural equivalent of Jaws\u201d in an appeal against Dublin City Council<\/a>\u2019s decision to grant permission.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen’sStephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre: the Dublin mall as it currently looks. Photograph: Visual Labs <\/p>\n

DTDL\u2019s agent David Goddard, who is chief executive of the property company Lanthorn \u2013 formerly Davy Real Estate<\/a> \u2013 decided that a new approach was needed to get its big project over the line. While retaining BKD in charge of every other aspect of the overall scheme, he called in John Tuomey<\/a> and commissioned him to reimagine the corner and its flanking facades on St Stephen\u2019s Green<\/a> and South King Street.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s now proposed is more considered and restrained than the razzle-dazzle scheme rejected six months ago, although it is still problematic in several respects<\/p>\n

This was a clever strategic move. O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey \u2013 Tuomey runs it with his equally acclaimed wife, Sheila O\u2019Donnell<\/a> \u2013 are home-grown starchitects of international standing, garlanded with numerous awards, notably Britain\u2019s Royal Gold Medal (in 2015). Recent cultural projects include Sadler\u2019s Wells Dance Theatre and V&A East Storehouse, both located at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park<\/a>, in Stratford, east London.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0A guide to who owns St Stephen\u2019s Green: from wealthy Irish families to private clubsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Their involvement in DTDL\u2019s shopping-centre project, at least in dressing its external appearance, has apparently found favour with the senior Dublin City Council planners Brian Keaney and Garrett Hughes. (Farther along the west side of St Stephen\u2019s Green is the Henry J Lyons<\/a> firm\u2019s unapologetically cubist-style building<\/a> for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, which Hughes hailed for its \u201cdistinctive contemporary design\u201d.)<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Startling\u2019: First look behind the RCSI\u2019s new \u2018front door\u2019 on St Stephen\u2019s GreenOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la\u2019s rejection of the proposed shopping-centre \u201crejuvenation\u201d scheme was narrowly focused on the facade treatment of its northeastern corner, with an unusually large seven-member board concluding that what BKD had proposed \u201cwould not achieve a sufficiently high standard of placemaking, urban design and architecture at this key city centre location\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen’sStephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre: version 1 of the redesigned Dublin mall, designed by BKD Architects. Illustration: Model Works <\/p>\n

The commission left the door wide open for DTDL to come back with a new proposal by explicitly stating that its members did not share the view of the senior planning inspector Iren\u00e9 McCormack that the existing shopping centre \u201crepresents an exemplar twentieth century building\u201d, and that it could be replaced \u201csubject to an appropriately high quality design solution\u201d being found.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey\u2019s revised design is therefore is \u201cin direct response\u201d to the commission\u2019s decision, as Tuomey says. He believes it would \u201cdeliver a strong architectural identity, a contextually rooted placemaking response, and an exemplar standard of urban design appropriate to its prominent setting\u201d, drawing inspiration from \u201cthe character of Dublin\u2019s historic fabric\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish architects have designed a new London neighbourhood. What could they do here?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

What\u2019s now proposed is more considered and restrained than the razzle-dazzle scheme rejected six months ago, although it is still problematic in several respects. There is also something very unusual about a firm of architects being called in to put their own front on a building designed by another firm. Frequently, interiors may be done by different architects, but almost never facades.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey say that much of their work has involved \u201cthe meaningful integration of new structures into historically significant contexts, often involving the radical transformation of existing buildings. A strategic understanding of place and a careful interpretation of context allows an architecture to emerge, an architecture which can unlock the latent potential of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stephen’sStephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre: the rejected version 2 of the redesigned Dublin mall, by BKD Architects. This view incorporates Dublin City Council\u2019s proposed public-realm improvements at the top of Grafton Street. Illustration: Model Works <\/p>\n

Tuomey says that, after getting Goddard\u2019s unusual request, he \u201cwalked around Stephen\u2019s Green several times, thinking about this\u201d, and noted the eccentric arrangement of windows in early-1740s buildings on its south side, which have what Dublin Civic Trust<\/a> describes as \u201cstranded\u201d gable windows at second-floor level, indicating that they were originally \u201cDutch Billy\u201d houses.<\/p>\n

Having decided to introduce red brick into the shopping-centre facade to form what would appear as \u201ctwo new house-like blocks\u201d flanking the scooped-out corner \u2013 one on St Stephen\u2019s Green, the other on South King Street \u2013 \u201cI said, let\u2019s take our brick facades and make them with stranded windows, symmetrical in themselves, but offset so you get a rhythm going\u201d, Tuomey says.<\/p>\n

These \u201chouse-like blocks\u201d are clearly intended to give variety to the facades, and they cover a mix of uses: retail on the ground and first floors, open-plan offices on the second and third floors, and a restaurant\/cafe on the fourth floor. The brickwork would rise to a parapet height of nearly 25m, well over double the modest domestic scale of 98-99 St Stephen\u2019s Green: reordered Dutch Billys on steroids, in effect.<\/p>\n

The arrangement of the windows is also odd, in that openings at the uppermost level on both elevations are taller than their single-pane glazing. This stone \u201cfringe\u201d treatment is repeated on the first floor, where splayed granite window sills would sit right on top of the fascias of retail units. Almost all of the windows are also devoid of the thin reveals so characteristic of Georgian Dublin.<\/p>\n

Alongside the brick wall, on St Stephen\u2019s Green West, sharply cut granite has been used for the facade treatment \u2013 \u201ca new stone palace type, giving a distinctive and contemporary architectural expression to the office component of the project and defining an independent entrance to the office accommodation\u201d, according to the architectural design statement submitted to Dublin City Council.<\/p>\n

There is no precedent for this stone typology on St Stephen\u2019s Green, or in Dublin. Tuomey admits that O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey \u201cjust took the stone detailing that we have in the CEU<\/a>\u201d \u2013 Central European University \u2013 \u201cin Budapest\u201d and applied it to the facade, as a counterpoint to the brick. The brick and stone of the former Kildare Street Club (now Alliance Fran\u00e7aise) by Deane and Woodward was also an inspiration.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen’sStephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre: O’Donnell+Tuomey\u2019s design, in a view incorporating Dublin City Council\u2019s proposed public-realm improvements at the top of Grafton Street. Illustration: Visual Labs <\/p>\n

The cutaway corner contains stone-clad elements cantilevered at third-floor level, each with a two-storey blank-brick gable, while the floors beneath evoke medieval overhangs rising from brick bases. Tuomey says its dimensions reference the well-known turreted art-deco corner building at the top of Grafton Street, by Robinson & Keefe. Indeed, it would fit snugly into O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey\u2019s proposed cavern.<\/p>\n

There would be views down Grafton Street from one set of projecting windows within the \u201ceroded\u201d corner, and across the north side of St Stephen\u2019s Green from the others. \u201cIt could be amazing up there,\u201d Tuomey says. On the other hand, the view from Grafton Street would be radically altered, with the existing dome replaced by a red-brick wall punctuated by tall top-floor windows.<\/p>\n

As for the behemoth commercial development that the new facade treatment would partially cloak \u2013 six or seven floors of offices stacked on top of a truncated two-storey shopping mall, interspersed with three atriums \u2013 Tuomey says, \u201cThis is not my world. I\u2019m not really looking at any of this.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Save Stephen\u2019s Green Campaign has been vigorously opposing plans to demolish all but part of the structure of the existing shopping centre<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey\u2019s role, as one naysayer says, has been limited to \u201cputting lipstick on the gorilla\u201d.<\/p>\n

Graham Hickey, chief executive of Dublin Civic Trust, describes the new design as \u201ca confused amalgam of two strands of the Dublin building tradition: modest bricked streetscape and stone-faced public buildings. In attempting to marry the two, the bricked component has been pumped up to the point of parody to align with the large commercial frame lurking behind. It\u2019s very unsatisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irrespective of its facade treatment, the sheer scale of what\u2019s proposed for this highly sensitive site at the edge of St Stephen\u2019s Green park \u2013 a national monument in its own right \u2013 needs to be reconsidered by Dublin City Council, whose planners really should seek a large-scale model of the scheme in its context, and by An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la after whatever decision the council makes is appealed.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen’sStephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre: O’Donnell+Tuomey\u2019s design. Illustration: Visual Labs <\/p>\n

Another planning inspector might take a different view to McCormack, who said she was \u201csatisfied\u201d that the provision of a lot of office space \u2013 29,000sq m \u2013 was \u201cjustified\u201d at this location, that the recessed upper floors would reduce its visual impact and that the site \u201chas the capacity to accommodate increased building height\u201d due to the \u201ctiered design approach\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, she regarded the way in which the 1988 building addresses St Stephen\u2019s Green and Grafton Street \u2013 \u201cthe most prominent and nationally recognised section of the site\u201d \u2013 as \u201cstylistically original and innovative\u201d, and she shared the concerns of many third-party objectors about the loss of this \u201cunique facade\u201d, particularly its trellis detailing and dome.<\/p>\n

Hickey describes it as \u201ca delightfully effervescent and enormously popular example of late-1980s commercial design. It represents not just an exemplar of its period but also a marker of the cultural and social zeitgeist in Dublin that decisively swung away from the brutal assaults on the historic fabric of the city in previous decades. This is absolutely fundamental to its significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Save Stephen\u2019s Green Campaign<\/a> has been vigorously opposing plans to demolish all but part of the structure of the existing shopping centre. Its co-ordinator, a University College Dublin architecture student named Yusuf Alraqi, says the new facade treatment is \u201ccertainly less monolithic and the massing of the entrance is somewhat improved\u201d, but he is disappointed by \u201cthis surface-level approach\u201d.<\/p>\n

He suggests that if O\u2019Donnell+Tuomey \u201chad more time and were able to take a holistic approach\u201d to the entire scheme, perhaps they would have produced something as coherent as their student centre<\/a> at London School of Economics. \u201cHowever, it\u2019s immediately obvious that this design is a mishmash of previous work and references pulled from their catalogue and does little to acknowledge its surroundings\u201d.<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, the latest planning application to redevelop Stephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre was lodged on December 17th, 2025, just 12 days after Gehry\u2019s death, at the age of 96. What the architect of the sensational Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao<\/a> would have made of its deconstructed corner and brick-and-stone facades is anybody\u2019s guess. But it\u2019s clear that his influence lives on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank Gehry might have smiled knowingly at the latest proposal for Stephen\u2019s Green Shopping Centre and the face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75,13288,54316,93,4431,129999,61,60,49775,106424,129998,45546,104952],"class_list":{"0":"post-263130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-an-coimisiun-pleanala","9":"tag-dublin-city-council","10":"tag-dublin-civic-trust","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-frank-gehry","13":"tag-henry-j-lyons","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-john-tuomey","17":"tag-o-donnell-tuomey","18":"tag-sheila-o-donnell","19":"tag-st-stephen-s-green","20":"tag-stephen-s-green-shopping-centre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}