Fascinating as their contents may be, museums are often just as interesting as an excuse to explore intriguing buildings. For every visitor to the exhibitions at the Guggenheim Bilbao, there are more who have simply come to gawp at the innards of Frank Gehry’s wriggly building. So, unless you have previously joined one of the Irish Architecture Foundation’s Open House tours, or have pressing business at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, lovers of enthralling edifices will be delighted to know that the new(ish) Visitor Centre at the Custom House is ready to welcome you.
I say new(ish) because the centre actually opened in November of last year, in time for the centenary of the building’s famous burning, and the 230th anniversary of the day its doors first opened as a palace of taxation and commerce. But, as we all know, our minds were somewhat distracted last winter, and so it’s a good time to explore James Gandon’s celebrated construction, which has been described variously and regularly as a jewel in Dublin’s architectural crown, a masterpiece of neo-classicism, and as the most important building in Dublin.
Despite these accolades, the Custom House has more recently pulled off the interesting feat of being hugely visible, and yet largely ignored. Unlike the GPO, it does not occupy a romantic space in the Irish imagination. While popular myth making would put the numbers of occupants of the Post Office in 1916 in their thousands, the Custom House didn’t really figure at all – except as a British Army stronghold, and a prison for holding captured rebels.
While being rebuilt, Irish limestone and granite were used instead of Portland stone for the central tower under the building’s dome. This means the tower is of a different colour
In fact, our relationship to the building has been so ambivalent that after its burning, and following the foundation of the new Irish Free State, there was considerable debate about whether to rebuild it at all. Estimates were put at £1.1 million (about €70 million today). Some suggested it should be the new GPO, others a train station, and yet more a public park. It took four years, but eventually the OPW’s principal architect, Thomas Joseph Byrne, worked out that both it and the GPO should be rebuilt.
Saving money, Byrne repurposed about 230,000 of the original bricks, ditched the great hall, and used Irish limestone and granite, instead of Portland stone, for the central tower under the building’s dome. This means the tower is of a different colour, which has been controversial in some quarters, but seems to …….
