Wednesday 13 January 2010

Irish Life Building, Lower Abbey Street

The Irish Life building on Lower Abbey Street (actually it stretches right through to Talbot Street) is an office block with a shopping mall on the ground level.
It was built in the 1970's by the pensions, life insurance and investment company Irish Life (founded in 1939 and now part of the Irish Life & Permanent group). In a discussion forum on Archiseek it gets mentioned as one of Dublin's ten ugliest buildings, but personally I don't think it's that bad. Certainly on a dull and overcast January day it's brown tinted glass façade adds just a hint of colour(color) to an otherwise grey(gray) cityscape.

2 comments:

Zuzana said...

I like its colour. It reminds me of a building I once saw in Paris, lining the river Seine.
;)
Zuzana

Valerie said...

I don't think it's ugly, just modern. A huge office block was built in Birmingham with mirror windows and it took some getting used to. I think it's because it's mixed in with older styles.