Smithfield: gargantuan design, no culture

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Archiseek / Ireland / News / 2006 / June 29

Smithfield was meant to be Dublin's version of Piazza Navona in Rome. At one stage, it was even being trumpeted as the city's "major space for the 21st century". But that's not how it is turning out. The place is far from finished, and what's been built there does not give it any coherence in urban design terms. The scale of Smithfield now ranges from three-storey, brown-brick 1980s social housing at its north-eastern end to the eight-storey bulk of the Fusano Properties scheme along the west side. With its squat 13-storey tower, this colossus has even visually consumed the 12 giant lighting masts that put Smithfield on the map.

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