The National Gallery of Ireland has been accused of failing to fulfil its statutory duty to consult the Heritage Council before finalising its plans for a £12.5 million extension into Clare Street, at the edge of Dublin's southside Georgian core. Mr Peter Pearson, a member of the Heritage Council, told a Bord Pleanala oral hearing yesterday that all public bodies were required by Section 10 of the Heritage Act to consult the council about any plan which involved demolishing a heritage building.
Mr James Macken SC, for the National Gallery, said it was his understanding that this requirement applied only to cases where the Heritage Council had designated a building as a heritage building. But Mr Pearson rejected this interpretation of the Act.
An Taisce, the Irish Georgian Society and others are appealing a decision by Dublin Corporation to grant planning permission for the gallery extension, on the grounds that it would require the demolition of a Georgian building, No 5 South Leinster Street.
They also maintain that a major modern building at this site, the bulk of which is already cleared, would damage the approaches to Merrion Square and that its 102foot lift tower would be visible over a wide area, including the Kildare Street frontage of Leinster House.
Mr Uinseann Mac Eoin, architect and conservationist, who is among the appellants, said it was also astonishing that the gallery had not considered the traffic and safety implications of having an estimated 1.5 million visitors a year using the entrance on Clare Street.
Ms Mary Bryan, architectural officer of the Irish Georgian Society, criticised the gallery for "precluding the option of incorporating No 5 South Leinster Street, formerly occupied by Davis King, in its brief for the architectural competition to design the extension.
She said it was also deplorable that an early 19th-century ballroom at the rear, the "only one of its kind in Dublin", should be proposed for demolition "just because it is in the way."
If necessary, it should be dismantled and re-erected elsewhere in the building.
Ms Bryan said British architects Benson and Forsyth had claimed that Dublin would be getting a "highly specific building sensitive to its location".
But what was being provided was a "minimally rehashed" version of their Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
She read a letter from Mr Joshua Cawley, a resident of Clare Court in the laneway adjoining the site, in which he said that the tall tower which was an integral part of the design "seems to be a function of serving the architect's ego as opposed to the gallery itself."
But Prof Gordon Benson, chief architect for the project, said the tower was "fully occupied" by the building's lift shaft and air handling units and could not, therefore, be reduced in height. Built of white concrete, it was "the minimum height necessary for its function".
He told the presiding inspector, Mr Padraig Thornton, that he was a member of the Royal Fine Arts Commission in Scotland and grappled constantly with issues involving the retention or demolition of historic buildings, similar in vintage to No 5 South Leinster Street.
Prof Benson said he had examined this building independently and concluded that it could not be retained if the gallery's needs were to be met. The retention of the ballroom at the rear would have compromised the plan, so it was another "regrettable casualty" of the scheme.
He also maintained that the modern gallery now proposed would join the family of major public buildings in Dublin and, like them, would be clad in stone - probably a white, Portland-like limestone - but he conceded that this issue had not yet been finally decided.
Ms Jeanne Meldon, national planning co-ordinator of An Taisce, said the question of what materials to use in cladding the gallery extension was "too important to be decided outside the public domain" between the architects and Dublin Corporation's planners.
Referring to the proposed demolition of buildings on the site, she said An Taisce was "extremely concerned that a national, cultural institution has apparently paid such scant regard to a part of the historical, cultural and architectural heritage of the city".
She said it was abundantly clear that this ran contrary to provisions in the 1991 Dublin City Development Plan, which favour the retention and re-use of existing buildings, listed or not, and the protection of streetscapes rather than their demolition.
But Dr Maurice Craig, architectural historian, gave evidence on behalf of the gallery that No 5 South Leinster Street had been so altered in the 19th century when the ground floor was converted to shop use that it would be "quite silly" to frustrate the project on this account.
Mr Bernard McHugh, planning consultant to the National Gallery, said the 1994-99 EU-funded National Development Plan provided for its expansion into Clare Street so that it could house major visiting exhibitions as well as provide a "major new public building for Dublin."
An Bord Pleanala is expected to make a decision on the matter shortly.
