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    Seventh City of Christendom

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    Khrodos
    This book provides a social and architectural history of Dublin from 1660 to 1860. It describes the elegant buildings and delicate vistas of Dublin, which give no indication of the dirt and swarming tenements found behind fine facades. The book penetrates buildings that many Dubliners are unaware of and describes them as well as better known structures with great care. It leaves the impression of Dublin's cool, sane grandeur rather than grubby cosiness. The book also discusses how occasional violence, raffishness and meanness expressed by inhabitants were somewhat shaped by the growing magnificence of Dublin's buildings over two centuries. It assess the contributions of speculative builders, aristocratic tenants, civic magnates, architects and the

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    Seventh City of Christendom

    Uploaded by

    Khrodos
    216 views1 page
    This book provides a social and architectural history of Dublin from 1660 to 1860. It describes the elegant buildings and delicate vistas of Dublin, which give no indication of the dirt and swarming tenements found behind fine facades. The book penetrates buildings that many Dubliners are unaware of and describes them as well as better known structures with great care. It leaves the impression of Dublin's cool, sane grandeur rather than grubby cosiness. The book also discusses how occasional violence, raffishness and meanness expressed by inhabitants were somewhat shaped by the growing magnificence of Dublin's buildings over two centuries. It assess the contributions of speculative builders, aristocratic tenants, civic magnates, architects and the

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    Review of Dublin 1660-1860. A Social and Architectural History. By Maurice Craig

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    This book provides a social and architectural history of Dublin from 1660 to 1860. It describes the elegant buildings and delicate vistas of Dublin, which give no indication of the dirt and swarming tenements found behind fine facades. The book penetrates buildings that many Dubliners are unaware of and describes them as well as better known structures with great care. It leaves the impression of Dublin's cool, sane grandeur rather than grubby cosiness. The book also discusses how occasional violence, raffishness and meanness expressed by inhabitants were somewhat shaped by the growing magnificence of Dublin's buildings over two centuries. It assess the contributions of speculative builders, aristocratic tenants, civic magnates, architects and the

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    216 views1 page

    Seventh City of Christendom

    Uploaded by

    Khrodos
    This book provides a social and architectural history of Dublin from 1660 to 1860. It describes the elegant buildings and delicate vistas of Dublin, which give no indication of the dirt and swarming tenements found behind fine facades. The book penetrates buildings that many Dubliners are unaware of and describes them as well as better known structures with great care. It leaves the impression of Dublin's cool, sane grandeur rather than grubby cosiness. The book also discusses how occasional violence, raffishness and meanness expressed by inhabitants were somewhat shaped by the growing magnificence of Dublin's buildings over two centuries. It assess the contributions of speculative builders, aristocratic tenants, civic magnates, architects and the

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 1

    Seventh City of Christendom

    Dublin 1660-1860. A Social and Architectural History. By Maurice Craig. (Cresset Press. 42s.)

    THAT hard-worked phrase "dear, dirty Dublin" cannot possibly strike many visitors to the noble city so admirably
    described in Mr. Craig's book as being particularly revealing. This compact capital, with its elegant buildings and
    delicate vistas, gives no outward warrant for intimate and back-handed compliments. Dirt there is, but mostly swept
    up into comers; and when it is found, as often as not in swarming tenements behind fine facades and doorways, therse
    is nothing endearing about it. No doubt affection might be inspired by the glorious, and not always refined,
    conversation of the inhabitants, but even that degenerates all too readily into that "tattle of this nasty town" which
    even Swift feared. One need not question that Dubliners love their city. This book in particular could not have been
    written except by a citizen who was sufficiently devoted to it to penetrate into many relatively inaccessible buildings
    (for the architectural heritage of Dublin is greater than the majority of its inhabitants suspect) and to describe them, as
    well as those better known, with great care and technical skill. But the final impression left with the reader is, as it
    were, of an informed and annotated version of the impression which the foreigner first receives. It is an impression of
    cool, sane grandeur—not of grubby cosiness.

    Those rather random items, of social history that Mr. Craig selects to embellish his story of Dublin building and to
    relieve the strict, but never unduly rigorous or technical, passages of architectural description, do not, and could not,
    miss out altogether the occasional violence, raffishness and meanness of the inhabitants, as these things expressed
    themselves over two full centuries. But even these passages leave a final impression of urbanity, as if the social history
    of'the city had been to some degree shaped and influenced by the growing magnificence of its buildings—as indeed it
    may have been. It would be difficult to live in, say, Upper Mount Street, and to observe daily that impressive vista,
    leading up to the cupola of St. Stephen's, without absorbing some of it's mellow calm. And there are many such
    prospects in Dublin. Mr. Craig describes how they got there, and assesses the relative contributions of speculative
    builders, aristocratic tenants, civic magnates, architects and the singularly enlightened though ruthless Wide Streets
    Commission which did so much to change the face of Dublin. His story ranges from the merely whimsical, through
    the clear and elegant passages of description which make up the greater part of the book, to a kind of sober exaltation
    when he comes to deal with Gandon's two masterpieces, those buildings which above all give Dublin the outwarp,
    aspects of a great civilised capital—the Custom House and the Four courts. From this chapter, which he appropriately
    calls "The Culmination," the book has a dying fall, though, when Mr. Craig overcomes his distaste for the nineteenth
    century sufficiently to examine the remarkably fine features of the Dublin railway-stations, it warms once more into
    life.

    It is a very handsome book, beautifully bound and printed, with many photographs which, even if rather crowded
    together, include some rarely reproduced items. While having some of the air of a work of piety—Mr. Craig's Irish
    patriotism is almost as prominent in it as his respect for Dublin—it is full of entertainment, and worth reading by
    anyone who is willing to submit to the fascination of great cities. WALTER TAFUN.

    [The Spector, June 20, 1952]

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