The removal of the motor tax office on Chancery Street has been a reminder of just how divisive the building is. River House has been empty for more than a decade, and in recent years there have been some anti-social problems around the complex. A Dublin City Councillor told the press that “from a local point of you, it has been a scourge, whether you’re talking about looking at it or otherwise. It has been a source of a lot of anti-social behaviour and criminality.” Its replacement, unsurprisingly at present, is to be a hotel. It seems everything is to be a hotel.
River House replaced the old motor tax office on Coleraine Street, which might better be described as a prefab. Few lamented its loss, and it was generally viewed as not fit for purpose. River House was completed in 1973, yet within a few short years there were demands for a second motor tax office on Dublin’s southside. Among various complaints were an absence of parking for members of the public around River House, it what was then still a thriving market district.
In recent times, River House has been repeatedly described as ugly in the press, The Sunday Times labeling it a “brutalist eyesore.” Frank McDonald, a champion of good architecture of all different schools and styles in Dublin, described it as an “incoherent building” in his classic study The Destruction of Dublin.
I feel it has some redeeming features, but is lacking by comparison to other brutalist structures of the period, certainly it has none of the robust glory of more celebrated buildings. The work of Patrick J. Sheahan & Partners, it never won the same praise as buildings such as the magnificent Berkeley Library of Trinity College Dublin or Fitzwilton House, described by @brutalistdublin as a “cathedral to concrete”. While a chorus of voices called for Fitzwilton House to be saved, the removal of River House occurs with no real voice of opposition. The controversies around its construction, and the fact it served as the much hated motor tax office, perhaps never really endeared the structure to Dubliners.
Writing for Architecture Ireland in 2016 on the subject of Fitzwilton House, architect Ciarán Ferrie noted that:
Those who remember the damage caused to the fabric of the city by the construction of these buildings may find it difficult to shed a tear when these too are threatened but it is unfair to judge the quality of a building by the circumstances of its inception. We are in danger of stripping the city of the remnants of modernism in favour of a built environment that has more to do with maximizing ‘return on investment’ than it does with architecture. And these buildings in turn will be replaced by newer shinier replacements in a wasteful cycle of destruction and reconstruction.
Regardless of what one thinks of River House, perhaps we can all agree on opposition to the city becoming one giant hotel.
The ‘King Of The Curragh’..Boxer,Dan Donnelly was said to have one of his four pubs, on that very corner, there was a plaque,now long gone. The only pub, still standing, that did belong to him, is Fallons,on the Coombe…he was said to have died in one of his pubs, ‘Donnellys Pub”, but, lv read somewhere, he was found around the Four Courts, in a heap, on the Street, and died soon after.. Maybe Donnellys Pub, was the name of the one at the old Tax Office…
Modernism aside, it’s an ugly building a slab of concrete and class, faceless and colourless much like those who work inside. Why does a modern building have to look so mundane? Considering that it is to stand the test of time why not build something that reflects Ireland’s rich tapestry and history?