DUTCH BILLYS - A HIDDEN BUILDING TRADITION
Dublin Street Architecture 1600 - 1750
Wednesday 12th October 2011
Conference Review
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Dublin Civic Trust’s major conference Dutch Billys – A Hidden Building Tradition: Dublin Street Architecture 1600 – 1750 was held in front of a capacity audience in the spectacular surroundings of the House of Lords in the Bank of Ireland, College Green on Wednesday 12th October 2011.
House of Lords Chamber
Opened by President-elect of the RIAI, Michelle Fagan, the audience of 120 people was reminded of the value of the historic built environment in creating an identity of place and how its protection reflects the cultural values of a society that is proud of its cultural inheritance. Ms Fagan noted how unidentified early buildings were particularly vulnerable to development pressures due to a lack of official recognition, and highlighted the potential they have to be put to dynamic use and reuse as characterful homes and workplaces.
Welcoming attendees and speakers to the event, CEO of Dublin Civic Trust, Geraldine Walsh, informed the audience about the background to the conference and the survey work and historical research that has been undertaken recently by Peter Walsh, Peter Keenahan and Graham Hickey, as well as the body of research that has been built up over the past three decades on the plan and evolution of Dublin and its buildings by experts such as Niall McCullough and the late Maurice Craig.
The proceedings were opened in an appropriately captivating manner by renowned Dublin historian, Peter Walsh, who highlighted through rare photographs, prints and deeds, the considerable diversity in gabled building types of the city from the 1500s to the opening years of the eighteenth century. His vast knowledge of the evolution of Dublin city brought to life the range of influences that shaped its vernacular architecture, ranging from migrant tradespeople and builders from Britain, to the property interests and centres of settlement of Huguenot, Quaker and other dissenter populations. Peter was followed by architect, Niall McCullough, author of Dublin – An Urban History, who brought the audience through a trail of house plans and types, assessing how interior space was used and design concepts were arrived at, and analysing the charms of his own workplace – a formerly gabled house on Molesworth Street constructed by builder, Benjamin Rudd, in 1744.
Architect, Peter Keenahan, brought the audience on a journey through gabled house types by categorisation, highlighting architectural features, construction techniques and common characteristics as shared from Dublin to Drogheda to Limerick. Pinpointing the Clancarty mansion on College Green through a Joseph Tudor engraving and a Francis Place drawing was one of the highlights. He also demonstrated his exceptional knowledge of gable types through a remarkable array of personally drafted drawings which brought the subject to life. Graham Hickey of Dublin Civic Trust followed, highlighting the hidden nature of early buildings in the city which often lurk intriguingly behind modified Regency or Victorian facades. His presentation included a round-up of vulnerable buildings, both formerly gabled and transitional types, and highlighted the inconsistent approach of the Record of Protected Structures to listing these buildings. Franc Myles, one of the few archaeologists in Ireland that specialises in the late medieval and post-medieval period, specialising in domestic buildings and industrial structures, spoke captivatingly about his extensive recent digs in the Cork Street area, exposing the substantial remains of a tannery and brewery, including watercourses and cisterns. He also assessed early plan forms of houses on Smithfield that were probably later converted to shops in the eighteenth century – an indication of the decline in the fashionability of the area by that time.
The afternoon session opened in insightful style, with a masterful overview by Rolf Loeber of the gabled tradition across Europe from the 1400s to the 1700s. He concluded that the term Dutch Billy was entirely inappropriate, as with most speakers on the day. He observed that while there was a significant local flavour in the style of gabled houses that were built in Ireland, the broad influence of the movement was one of an international trend that spanned nations from the Renaissance onwards. He highlighted the gabled form of the pavilion wings of Palladio’s Villa Barbaro as an example of the pervasive nature of the tradition, in that instance entering the strict canon of classicism – a theme, he noted, that is apparent in Irish country houses of the 1600s. Architect, James Kelly, explored the possible international influences on Irish interiors of the period as gleaned from contemporaneous painting, printing and engraving. He explored plain timber plank paneling adorning the walls of depicted interiors, features such as draught platforms and niches for crockery, and furniture styles and their placement within domestic rooms. Exterior elements such as early windows and pantiles, and curious structures such as cookhouses, also peppered his thought-provoking lecture.
John Montague explored the contemporaneous city as explored through John Rocque’s Exact Survey of 1756 and Bernard de Gomme’s map of Dublin of 1673, amongst others - pinpointing residences, industry and expanding new suburbs. He pointedly highlighted how our modern-day perception of the Georgian city is filtered through the relatively small and ‘sanitised’ sample of what now remains today, rather than the considerably varied streetscapes and building typologies that once defined the capital as late as the 1950s.
The day was fittingly closed by a captivating presentation by Freddie O’Dwyer, author of Lost Dublin amongst many other articles. He focused primarily on the large mansions of the seventeenth and early-eighteenth century city, including the mansion of the Earls of Kildare on Suffolk Street, the Conolly mansion on Capel Street and Ardee House on Ardee Street, amongst others. He spoke of the surviving great mansions of the Aungier estate, that while predominantly built of brick, share many of the structural characterisitics of timber-cage construction, while his show-stopping finale was a conceptual drawing of the ancient Belvedere House in Drumcondra, part of which still survives, from the roof of which he convincingly claimed Francis Place’s elusive perspective of the north side of Dublin was taken.
Christine Casey of Trinity College Dublin wrapped up the events by animatedly chairing a short discussion on the issues raised throughout the conference. While a debate persisted through the day on the derivation and appropriateness of ‘Billy’ in referencing a political aspect to the gabled movement’s success after 1690, a general consensus was reached on the broader international influence on gabled buildings in Ireland, and in particular the construction and craft skills as introduced by immigrants in shaping a vernacular style that developed in Ireland in the 1600s, flourishing into a more confident, decorous style in the early years of the eighteenth century.
Dublin Civic Trust is deeply grateful to all who made the day such a success, in particular the seven speakers who generously gave their time and expertise, including Martin Colreavy of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The seamless operation of the day was also facilitated by the expert chairing of Raymond Gillespie of NUI Maynooth, Ali Grehan, City Architect of Dublin City Council, Eddie McParland of Trinity College Dublin, and Christine Casey of Trinity College Dublin.
We hope the conference has brought a new awareness and understanding of the gabled building typology and other early buildings of Ireland of the 1600s and 1700s. We look forward to building on the outcomes of the conference by undertaking a survey of these structures that survive across Dublin city, and encouraging greater public interaction with the subject through a variety of exciting projects.
Read the article on the conference from The Irish Times, Thursday 13th October 2011
The quaint term Dutch Billy has been used for over half a century to generically describe town houses of the pre-Georgian period, often recalling evocative photographs of triangular-gabled weavers’ houses still present in early twentieth century Dublin, or Dutch-gabled houses, usually heavily modified, surviving in the midst of some of the capital’s most fashionable Georgian streets into the 1950s and beyond. The Billy has almost reached mythical status, with relatively few examples surviving today, and only a small quantum of their forebears lasting sufficiently unaltered by the twentieth century to leave us with a vivid documentary record of their original architectural pretensions. Until now, much of our understanding of these important early houses has been influenced by nostalgia, conjecture and assumption.
Dutch Billy does little descriptive justice to the sophisticated buildings of the largely forgotten and often dismissed period of Irish urban expansion of the late 1600s and early 1700s, and its resulting gabled architectural tradition that lasted into the middle of the eighteenth century - the theme often branching out to encompass country houses, churches and public buildings. However, recent and ongoing research being carried out with Dublin Civic Trust is revealing a wealth of new information about these early buildings, documenting in considerable detail the magnificent urban tradition that pre-dated Ireland’s Georgian expansion.
The first ever public event of its kind on the subject, featuring a host of illustrious expert speakers, this seminal conference on Dublin’s gable-fronted architecture aims to dispel many of the myths associated with ‘fabled gables’, and to highlight the extraordinary diversity, eclecticism, and noble civic spirit of Dublin’s largely forgotten tradition of gabled street architecture.
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PROGRAMME
09.10 – 09.30 Registration
09.30 Doors close (sharp)
09.30 Welcome & Introduction
09.40 Opening Address 09.50 Fabled Gables and the Persistence of Antique Form
10.30 Morphology of a Changing City – Dublin’s Early Streetscapes
11.00 Discussion
11.10 Tea/Coffee Break
11.40 Towards a Classification - Dublin’s Gabled House Typologies
12.20 A Hidden Legacy - What’s with us Today
12.40 Engine of the City - Dublin Industry of the 17th and 18th Centuries
13.00 Discussion
13.10 Lunch
14.10 Welcome Back - Government Policy on Architecture
14.20 How Dutch were the Dutch Billys?
15.00 Some Minor and Inconsequential Matters – Details of Domesticity
15.25 Discussion
15.35 Tea/Coffee Break
15.55 Charting a Changing City - John Rocque's Exact Survey of 1756
16.15 Dublin’s Forgotten Architectural Tradition
16.40 Concluding Discussion
17.00 Close
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Friends of Dublin Civic Trust