Sir, - As an architect and urban designer, I agree wholeheartedly with Robert O'Byrne's comments on the Four Seasons Hotel (The Irish Times, February 19th. Visiting Dublin from London for the rugby international against France, I was shocked to see what had sprung, mushroom-like, from a corner of the once venerable RDS. It is difficult to credit that such an unprecedented feat of neo-Victorian contemporised schlock could have been built in Ballsbridge.
The hotel is grossly overscaled for its location; it reflects nothing of the character of this traditional, leafy suburb of Dublin; and, as Robert O'Byrne states, the building looks as if it should be in California - or, better still, Las Vegas.
Foreigners and natives alike love the city of Dublin for its small scale, its intimacy, the friendliness of its people and its unique character. Good architecture and urban design mirror these qualities. Unfortunately, the Four Seasons Hotel has been allowed to steamroller its way into Dublin through the ignorance of an ineffective planning authority. If a hotel of this type has to be built, it should have been in an area where it would have contributed more to the urban regeneration of the city. The last thing Ballsbridge needed was another swanky watering hole.
Money and taste can sometimes exist happily together - one need only look at the great terminus hotels built in some of the capitals of Europe to realise that a large hotel can be a worthy addition to any city. The Shelbourne Hotel on St Stephen's Green is a wonderful example of a building of this type adding to the vitality of Dublin. Ballsbridge, however, has been violated by the crass vulgarity of an edifice which only detracts from the quality of its environment. - Yours, etc.,
Damian W. Connolly, RIBA, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England.