The original Archer’s Garage, Irish Independent 11 March 1953.
Archer’s Garage, where Sandwith Street meets Fenian Street, is a beautiful Art Deco building – but it isn’t quite as old as it looks.
Over the June Bank Holiday weekend in 1999, one of Dublin’s more peculiar buildings was illegally razed by a developer, leading to massive controversy. The developer in question signed a legal agreement with Dublin Corporation to rebuild the structure, which prevented prosecution for the act of senseless vandalism, and was preferable to a fine of a million or jail time! An Taisce noted that “it is the first time a developer has had to restore a listed building in Dublin.”
Evening Herald, 12 October 1999.
Archer’s Garage took its name from R.W Archer, the first man to import Ford cars into Ireland. Archer attended Dublin’s first motor car show in the RDS in 1907, which began a love affair with cars. At ninety years of age, he was still reportedly working three days a week in the garage in 1967!
Completed in 1946, the garage was designed by Arnold Francis Hendy, who was also responsible for the beautiful Pembroke Library. While Art Deco buildings certainly stand out in the city (the GAS building on D’Olier Street being particularly popular), there is a richer history of Art Deco style architecture in this country than one might first think, highlighted recently by this excellent piece in Village magazine. Perhaps the most celebrated Art Deco architect to work in Dublin was Housing Architect Herbert Simms, whose public housing units (in particular the Chancery House scheme beside the Four Courts) remain popular. The Art Deco buildings of Dublin are, like most schools of architecture, a mix of public and private buildings.
The reconstruction of the demolished garage was scheduled to begin in September 1999, just months after its demolition, though work didn’t start until 2001. When completed, the building was widely praised. Still, it is difficult to disagree with the assessment of BuiltDublin.com that something just isn’t right:
For me, it’s impossible to shake off the Pet Sematary feeling about the building – not the demonic possession aspect, but the creepiness of reanimation. There isn’t an ‘undo’ function after demolition, and however grand words like ‘reinstate’ might make the process sound, this is a building completed in 2000 to a best-guess version of an 1940s design, and I can’t see how that’s desirable or anything other than a very particular pastiche.
The reconstructed Archer’s Garage. (Image Credit: Creative Commons, Kolleykibber )
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Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
The restored building may not adequately replace the original but it should be seen as a monument to restorative justice – pour décourager les autres.
Was this a once off or are there any other examples of forced “restoration” around the city?
For years I worked in the building for a company called EWL Electric just before it was demolished. I remember it was knocked down over a bank holiday weekend.I also noticed it lay idle for a long time after been rebuilt during the Celtic tiger …always wondered if Dublin cIty council put the completion cert on the long finger as an example to other developers. It is now occupied by KBC bank.Philip lacey
Similar story with the old parochial hall/Barn Church (early 1800’s) in Finglas village, it was levelled early on a Sunday morning despite being a protected structure. Unlike the Art Deco building it has not been rebuilt
My Dad was a civil engineer who had worked on the original construction in his younger days. When the building needed to be restored he, though retired, went back through the drawings he could trace and talked through the original design with the new contractors. I only found out about it after telling him how much I liked that building!