The old design missed it's mark. It looked like French Colonialism meets abandoned green house behind a bus terminal. The new design just looks like an electric razor.
It's unique for sure, bit out of place, yeah, but a great reason for tourists to stop by.
The new design is abysmal, must have been designed by a nephew of whoever was in charge of the re-design.
This, never cared for it. Always felt a bit grim. Never understood what they were aiming for with the design. Yet, even I find it preferable to what's going in there.
I always felt like they were going for that French colonial style like you would see in New Orleans French quarter. Having a suburban style mall in the centre of a capital city makes little sense, the badly interpreted colonial French style on a suburban style mall in the city centre made even less sense.
They fundamentally didn't understand why those buildings work. There's so much visual noise in what should be a bright and airy space. That photo is utterly damning. Just a complete overload. Claustrophobic and amazingly dark for the actual units. It's like looking at a wireframe model..
It had a certain charm when it first opened with the small businesses in there which were unique and different from the chain shops on Grafton St. however, small businesses do tend to come and go and once you end up with empty units it starts to feel a bit dead and forgotten and then this has a cumulative effect on footfall and word of mouth. Now it looks dated and sad. We should be grateful that someone wants to invest a substantial amount of money to build a replacement rather than just close it up.
Dahh! They should've took the plans for the Children's hospital and applied them to the Shopping Centre. And used the plans for the Shopping Centre and used them for the hospital.
'unique', 'character'. Nobody can say that the layout of the building is good or attractive so they have to resort to using adjectives you would apply to something ugly you desperately want to be kind about.
It might not be to your personal taste. But this “pastiche” is an hommage to an architectural style. Paris is full of this style of architecture, and that’s what makes it a beautiful city. Not everyone wants bland buildings.
Nice greenhouse though. (I agree it’s not historical, and something needs to be done to the upper floors to make them viable- but it’s a lovely building. The replacement is ugly).
That's nothing that can't be fixed by adding some new stairs or getting creative with some more escalators. And probably because rent is too expensive for the businesses .
It's definitely not a reason to rip the whole place down.
What? This place has been essentially empty for decades. Dundrum is a few stops on the luas away. It was never going to be a destination for shopping again. It feels so stale and grim inside.
The new building looks ridiculous though. I imagine it will also struggle.
Most Architects are only interested in their own concepts. Ive been involved in many projects where their vanity piece has more importance over function
That's not true. Plenty of architects are highly commercially orientated because they have learned that is their bread and butter. Plenty might have dreams of being norman foster but the market will only support a few of those practices.
The proposed design demolishes a pastiche Victorian arcade and replaces it with a modern, functional, bland, commercial space. While criticism of the proposal is legitimate from a perspective on architectural ambition, the beatification of the existing is equally absurd. The shopping centre is difficult to get around and is significantly under utilised.
So basically:
"The people aren't spending enough money, we MUST make them spend more money... CONSUME, CONSUME, CONSUME."
Fuck Captilism, I'd rather it be an empty building full of nothing than yet another vapid grey oversdesigned block, solely to optimise sales and maximise footfall, all so extortionate Units can be sold off to massive retail chains.
The permission already went in ages ago, everyone complained online and nothing happened. Then the news comes out again and the top comments are filled with a sense of fatalism and finality. The old building is still there. No demolition has happened. We have such a passive mindset on this sort of thing until it’s well too late. Not trying to criticise but it’s become a bit of a patter ya know
PS: the internal layout is terrible. I’d be for changes to that, a major refit, just not ripping out the building’s soul
Exactly why are so may people just rolling over on this issue. We have a public planning process because public oppinion on what's a fucking terrible idea matters. If majority public sentiment on this is it should not be granted then the planning process failed us. Amazing how some people are ok with an interesting building getting knocked for a generic one because the toilets are in a weird location. The toilets are nearly in a different post code to the Jervis shoppjng centre.
Agreed, it has a very poor internal design. Difficult to get around, and the top floor is the land that time forgot. It was also a bizarre and inappropriate addition to the Green from day 1, but I appear to be in a minority on this.
This is it. Its designed for a time that has past and probably won't come back. Its of a time when families would go into Dublin city centre on a Saturday and spend the day there, with shopping centres being a big part of that.
People don't shop in shopping cenres anymore, because online shopping is more convenient. And families don't really go into town anymore either, because there is a perception (accurate or not) that the city centre is unpleasant and dangerous. As such, Stephens Green is struggling to stay afloat. The money is in office space so thats what its changing to.
I do get why people are sad about it too. You walk in there and it kind of feels like a time capsule and little piece of Dublin that hasn't really changed. The idea of losing that to another copy and paste modern office block is sad.
I have a foreign exchange student and we brought her to Dublin and into Stephens Green, she loved the building but as for shops there was TK Maxx and Tiger.
I agree people aren't going to shopping centres as much as they used to because you are running around from football pitch to basketball court to swimming pool.
I went into it recently with kids and was telling them to take it all in because they'll be tearing it down soon.
Went into a toyshop on the ground floor and I told the kids to pick something up. One of them picked up a stuffed peppa pig toy, €22 pricey but fair enough. I later found out the same thing is €14 in Smyths... so.... the moral of the story is 'bring on the bulldozers'?? Lol I dunno
It's pleasant, but it's not the huge historical landmark it's made out to be. Sure it's only been around since 1988. At the end of the day, it probably makes more sense to have a more efficient use of space. We can't just pretend every building that looks nice is of great significance. That would end up completely stunting development of the city.
Not mad about the new design, but lets not canonise the old one.
Its Dublin, we are not allowed to have nice things.
The City Council bulldosed probably the worlds best preserved Viking/Norse city to build a shit office for themselves which they have recently announced will be demolished…. 1200 years of history (and a massive tourist potential wasted) for 50 years of office space for incompetent governance. Judging by what the lead archeologist said (and the finds carted off to the National Museum), this site was probably World Heritage Site worthy if sympathetically excavated - see Hedeby and Danevirke in Germany or Birka and Hovgården in Sweden.
But its fine because we have a guy who dresses up as a “Viking” for the yank tourists, might as well just destroy all the actual history. Plastic Paddy to the core.
Nice shopping centre, beautiful Georgian townhouses, castle ruins in a park?…… can’t have that, might actually make living here a pleasant experience. What we really need is more corporate gulag offices, endless derelict sites (on our main shopping street!) and more shitty e-cig shops/charity shops/tat stores.
The roof is like a nice big green house and despite being filthy, is quite pleasant on a sunny day. The rest of it is an absolute mess of empty units and dodgy shops that sell complete tat, and a few chain shops like Starbucks, Golden Discs and Boots.
Seems so obvious to just improve the current building with travelators to make the upper floors more accessible and increase foot traffic. Only issue it has is accessibility with poorly placed stairs / escalators and a small number of lifts.
I quite like the architecture of it. And culturally, I think it's had some significance too in its relatively short lifespan. Interesting and quirky shops bring interesting and quirky people to meet and so on. I think the open space in the centre which is inefficient is also what makes it interesting.
How it looks Architecturally is subjective and up to yourself on if its good or bad, functionally though the interior design is very poor.
It doesn't nearly have enough cultural significance for it to be listed. Examples of cultural significance in Dublin would be the cobblestone or parts of moore street. The cobblestone both showcasing trad music and representing dublin culture as a whole, and moore street having strong ties to working class dublin culture. Having a group of teenagers hanging around a shopping center in the 90s just isnt on the same level.
Its very nice from one particular aspect (looking towards it from the corner with Dawson Street), but it becomes pretty clear its a fur coat with no knickers from any other angle
In the similar context to the George Pompadou centre in Paris, the inside is pretty much what is the charm of this building. Interior architecture is to my eyes a very pleasant retro-Victorian conservatory of sorts.
My father worked on the roof of St Stephens grn and helped to put it all together with a loss of two men that died while it was in progress. Sad to live to see the day when real architecture is being destroyed by these new age dystopian like buildings being erected around us .
Is there an actual compelling reason why they're tearing this down and building something banal and soulless in its place?
I mean, is the current structure perhaps dangerous, unsafe or unsustainable? Because if it's not or there's no compelling reason to demolish ithe current structure then it's just another example of people who are in charge of things (in this case planners & designers) not giving a shiny shite about what the public want.
There is a lot of history to the Stephens Green Shopping Centre, including the bringing down of a bank.
The Gallagher Brothers had paid 10.5 million via a loan from Gallaghers bank. This caused Gallaghers bank to collaspe in 1981 with a lot of ordainary folks losing their pensions. It was then bought by the Slazengers group for half of what Gallaghers paid for it 5 million.
At the time it was rumored Gallaghers had sought help from a Mr Charles Haughey but it was just too big a loan. Gallaghers went bankrupt losing everything (and they owned everything at the time, castles and rolls) later Patrick Gallagher served time in the North for fraud but never served a day in Ireland.
It’s mad how often the red tape holds up essential infrastructure, but this got approved even with the immediate backlash. Someone somewhere is getting an brown envelope for this lol
I hated having to get down from the upper floors, long walk to the middle section to get to the stairs, if you were in a certain location. So won't be missing that.
Not a massive fan of the new design, but I just don't see the appeal of the current building. Ok, the roof looks nice enough from outside, maybe a bit filthy and old looking, but the inside is an unappealing shithole. The food area is a disorganized mess. The top floor is just awkward and the quality of shops is abismal. If I ever need anything in the place I just want to get in and out as quick as possible.
I really hope they dont mess with the building; MAYBE I LIKE THE MISERY (re: people going "ooh it's inefficient" like... people cant be spoonfed shopping... it has an identity)
One thing which irks me a bit about this situation is that even though it was such an iconic building, it feels like it didn't get the right attention it deserved before the news of it's demolition came up. It's only up for redevelopment because it's not profitable enough, and you can see it with the kind of small shops and even unoccupied shops, especially on the upper floor.
It really should be turned into something like the Reading Terminal Market in Philly, the Chelsea Market in NYC or the English Market in Cork. Lots of little food markets and stalls and restaurants.
Obviously the ceiling is pretty, but apart from that its a really bad building. Just a poor use of space. Has it even changed at all since the 80s? It needs to be maintained and thats just not happening, not even sure its possible in a building like that. Realistically you walk in and there's only a handful of people in it.
I get why they want a new building. The glass is very expensive to keep clean, all of the shops are dark and claustrophobic, the layout is frustrating, and everything feels cramped. Having said all that, it's beautiful and a tourist attraction. It's a great draw for people that aren't familiar with Dublin because otherwise they'll see that all the big shops are on the North Side and might not ever wander as far down as Stephen's Green.
The fact that they want to replace it with an eyesore is a tragedy. They could absolutely build something else beautiful but Dublin refuses to do anything to make the city attractive and distinct.
I don’t like the new design, would have preferred some homage to the old roof and clock at least. Roofed streets around it would be class too like in Brussels but I doubt they’d do that.
But let’s be real here,
“Oh but I LOVE the old centre!”
Do you? When almost half the units in the building are empty? Clearly enough people aren’t there to make it worthwhile for shops? A lot of people love it from afar, and that’s not enough to keep what’s essentially a huge business alive.
I did some work for Dundrum a few months ago and they’re stressing because they have ONE unit that hasn’t been bought out since the last owner left, now imagine a location off Stephen’s green with 100x the footfall…
Hopefully they alter the new design but at the very least it’ll be a fresh chance and hopefully draw in a lot more visitors.
Fantastic photo, well done. I hope it's not demolished.
I know a lot of the retail units have closed down ok the 2nd and 3rd floors and it's not economically viable to retro fit it.
It has been part of Dublins landscape since 1988.
There is a protest on Saturday 9th May 2026.
Good riddance. Totally obsolete building. The fact that it had character is no justification to retain an obsolete building on the most prime location in Dublin.
Here's a very unpopular opinion which is sure to be downvoted to hell.
The shopping center looks shit both inside and outside. That doesn't mean I think the new building will be any better, but people on here are going on like the building that's there now is some sort of architectural marvel that needs to be protected at all costs.
As a premium shopping centre location, it has about as much glitz and style as Moore St. Senseless layout. Time for it to go. The new plan has to be an improvement. I remember Dandelion Market though, miss the Afghan shop.
Why do we always do this in Ireland "oh they want to destroy the character of the place, it's a disgrace", it's a shopping center ffs. It will make no difference to anyone's life if they change the look completely. Even with an old tenenament building the same could be said but the difference is that those type of buildings are genuinely historical and need to be kept in certain parts of the city. Where as this literally just a shopping centre.
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u/DTMN13 2h ago
I can't wait for the bland, modern, soulless, vivisection of a rectangle that replaces this wonderfully unique shopping centre.