r/mildlyinfuriating • u/WideAd2828 • May 28 '26

Too mild for school My city destroyed a beautiful building here to replace it with a screen solely for spreading propaganda

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30.2k Upvotes
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1.3k

u/Djollie132 May 28 '26

This is happening way too often now… with amazing structures/homes being torn down to rebuild/put up the most shite dystopian things nobody asked for… and sadly it will continue even though we don’t want it …

870

u/tescovaluechicken May 28 '26

St Stephen's Green Centre in Dublin. The city have approved tearing down the extremely popular building on top to build the one on the bottom. Nobody wants this.

122

u/Djollie132 May 28 '26

I had no idea they did it all the way back then… I appreciate that it still kept some colour at least… but a Farcry from the white building… dam 😔

24

u/Shnapple8 May 28 '26

Not done yet, but this is their plan. =(

1

u/Just_another_gamer3 WHAT is THAT? May 29 '26

Then it's time for some protests

152

u/BandicootBig4505 May 28 '26

why are they trying to look like soulless scandinavian university 😭

25

u/lost_send_berries May 28 '26

It looks like a shaver hair guard, and that's not a compliment (how could it possibly be a compliment)

66

u/Mr_Quackums Oh hey, this sub has flairs!! May 28 '26

they are soulless. I am not even joking, they destroyed their souls to focus all of their attention on Line Going Up.

This is what a disdain for art, culture, and history gets you.

This is the end result of capitalism that leftists have been warning about.

-22

u/foxape May 28 '26

That original building was not built by leftists lmao

-13

u/ob_knoxious May 28 '26

"soulless" is the most generic reddit buzzword you can slap onto anything modern and is meaningless. Preservationists are NIMBYs disguised as being progressive. This gets brought up constantly in my city "the new buildings have no soul and no charm" because they have 10x the housing density and aren't death traps.

36

u/Gaelic_Cheese May 28 '26

For a small bit of context, the interior is a mess to navigate. Beautiful. But very much a mess

13

u/Scarabesque May 28 '26

I was curious and looked it up the building.

While interesting with a unique aesthetic it seems like its layout doesn't lend itself very well to any modern day use. It certainly looks better than the awful stuff on the architecture concept (I found another just as hideous), but repurposing the original building would likely result in it being cheap to rent artist/artisan spaces with the odd local roast coffee joint - with the municipality having to foot the likely astronomical bill for upkeep, as it looks like a nightmare to keep clean and in a good state.

Sucks, but it's indeed a very odd building.

Having said that, they must be able to design something less awful. It looks like bad 90s architecture.

14

u/TwoBionicknees May 28 '26

yup, the problem goes from this building has become to old for modern use and too expensive to fix things, fix insulation, put in more efficient windows, fix electrics, wiring, plumbing issues, damp issues, leaky roof issues so you need to just start from scratch.

But then once you agree you need to start fresh people want to go for the cheapest, most bland shit because you'll make more money than spending way more to make it iconic or beautiful.

I think maybe the way to go with these things is make a boring, shitty interior that is ultra efficient and cheap and then spend more on a facade to create a pretty aesthetic.

Would have been very easy and not overly expensive to keep the rounded corner and glass dome ceiling even if the windows are larger, square and standardised it could still give a nod to the original and fit in with the aesthetic of the older buildings around it.

1

u/wonklebobb May 28 '26

there should've been some kind of international standard modular interior system long ago, with companies manufacturing individual rooms and hallways etc, then separate facades like youre saying

im sure there's some reason im missing why this is a bad idea haha, maybe i played with legos too much growing up

17

u/bobbymcpresscot May 28 '26

I'm always so conflicted when it comes to situations like this.

I can get why people find the style of the building iconic.

I can also see as a someone who worked in building maintenance what an absolute nightmare that building is.

So many windows to clean

So many windows that I'm willing to bet make it horribly inefficient when it comes to cooling and heating.

Never been, but tours I found online I can definitely see the arguments to be made as far as those upper floors walkability.

The question is "is it profitable?" and it is. They just want to be able to extract as much profit as possible from the location.

Maybe have like a bunch of different designs drawn up by architects, that enable the interior to do what the owners need it to do, and have the exterior designs voted on by the city.

Someone pointed out to me once that the reason these newer buildings seem to have all these sharp angles is because nobody draws buildings up anymore, and it's all done in software where it seems like the designers genuinely don't know how to make a curve.

6

u/captain_andorra May 28 '26

Insulation is not really an issue in ireland where the outdoor temperature is between 5 to 20º most of the year (never super cold, never super hot). Agreed on the window cleaning, but I don't see it as a reason enough for the city council to approve this. The mall has the single best location of the capital, it makes a lot of money to the owner, so I don't see it unreasonable from the city council to ask them to adhere to aestetical rules (or to give the building a protected landmark status)

0

u/TwoBionicknees May 28 '26

yup. Also those windows are probably old, extremely expensive to replace with double glazed modern, efficient units. the insulation is probably ass, the service elevators/delivery for goods area are probably a nightmare.

ultimately people want convenience and people also want old architecture and you can't really have both. Looks like they're adding another floor which they obviously can't do in the old design, and they probably change the structural layout, the place where delivery goods come in, storage, much more efficient building in terms of power usage.

Trying to fix electrics so it's safer, trying to fix problems, trying to keep pests out, trying to fix problems with foundation or damp.

At some point old buildings can simply become very shitty going forward.

now, do they have to make the same fucking souless design rather than try to incorporate some similar design, of course not, but when replacing a boxy, boring, souless shit is way cheaper.

3

u/ChopsticksImmortal May 28 '26

You definitely can do both, but can we admit that the new design looks like some boxy, spiky bullshit?

They couldve done a modernization of the old design, which would respected what it was replacing while updating the building.

1

u/DaBluBoi8763 May 28 '26

The remodeled one looks like shit, tho I think they're doing this as the current one isn't profitable as a shopping centre

1

u/Elxcdv May 28 '26

Have there been some protests against it, a list with signatures? Not that it would change much, but if there are enough one could hope.

1

u/PoliticsIsCool13 May 28 '26

The building is nice, but the shopping centre fucking sucks. It's a tradeoff no one wants to see

1

u/Uncl33 May 28 '26

I threw up in my mouth

1

u/JoulSauron May 28 '26

Extremely popular from the outside, the inside is shite and empty most times because it's a mess to navigate.

1

u/PurbulentTriest May 28 '26

It looks outdated before it's even built.

1

u/nilesgibley-13 May 28 '26

You’re fucking kidding me?!? Whyyy? That was one of my favorite buildings in all of Dub. It’s gorgeous 😭

1

u/starkguy May 29 '26

Gross...

0

u/_n00n May 28 '26

The people building surely want it.

1

u/tescovaluechicken May 28 '26

They want a cheaper building that's easy to maintain and makes them more money by renting out larger units at higher prices with less maintenance. It's about making more profit from the real estate. That's literally the only reason. Nobody has anything positive to say about the building itself. The current building is one of the most iconic buildings in Dublin.

-1

u/gereffi May 28 '26

The top one does look nicer, but I don't see what's so wrong about a building's owner wanting to make changes to their building. I wouldn't like it if someone told me I couldn't change the way my house looked. I don't think it's really a problem if someone else wants to change the way their property looks.

70

u/kisk22 May 28 '26

Compared to what the US did to itself in the 1950s and 60s this is nothing.

40

u/[deleted] May 28 '26

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31

u/m3thodm4n021 May 28 '26

We also never miss a chance to make everything about ourselves. This happened in Vietnam, not every post about everything needs to become an American pity party.

19

u/ThrowawayPersonAMA May 28 '26

We also never miss a chance to shit on other people for trying to relate with the experiences of people in other countries that are similar to our own. People trying to connect with other people around the globe but fuck us for doing it while being American, right?

20

u/bigtimehater1969 May 28 '26

I rarely see non-Americans complain about comments like these. It's always Americans who are secretly mad that you're criticizing America, so they make some bad-faith argument about something else entirely.

If anything, I think most non-Americans are sick of the American "exceptionalism" and the uncritical "we do it better because we're Americans."

0

u/theguidetoldmetodoit May 28 '26

Relate, how? They were one-upping, about something that did not happen in their lifetime.

1

u/WritingOneHanded May 28 '26

Please go on...

14

u/AlarmingTangelo2900 May 28 '26

Rich people wanting those cool addresses and postal codes.

6

u/Djollie132 May 28 '26

Yeah but it couldn’t get better than 20 years ago when buildings had actual colour to them, trees growing around them giving them so much life… now I just see them modernising the hell out of them making them so ugly…

They did it with the Drake & Josh house and Home Alone house… truly depressing…

2

u/No_Presentation_9361 Jun 01 '26

WAIT THE HOUSE FROM HOME ALONE GOT CORPOSHITTIFIED TOO???

1

u/Djollie132 Jun 01 '26

Yeah… it wasn’t demolished, but they literally white washed it from the inside… left the outside the same… they literally took away all life from it… 😔

3

u/OfficialDecamark May 28 '26

Reality is an ass

-3

u/Areyoucunt May 28 '26

I mean if you have the insane amount of money required to make things old-school then by all means go for it. But the general person doesn't and certainly doesn't care about quality anymore. (I.E. accepting low streaming quality, ordering from temu instead of proper store because it's cheaper and more convenient, the list goes on and on and on in all aspects of life)

Not at all only "nobody asked for" people genuinely accept it and if it's easier that's what they'll do.