Irish Houses of Parliament: Encyclopedia II - Irish Houses of Parliament - Design of the new building

Irish Houses of Parliament - Design of the new building

Pearce's design for the new Irish Houses of Parliament was revolutionary. The building was effectively semi-circular in shape, occupying nearly an acre and a half (6,000 m²) of ground. Unlike Chichester House, which was set far back from Hoggen Green, the new building was to open up directly onto the Green, as the above photograph shows. The principal entrance consisted of a colonnade of Ionic columns extending around three sides of the entrance quadrangle, forming a letter 'E' (see picture at the bottom of the page). Three statues, representing Hibernia (the Latin name for Ireland), Fidelity and Commerce stood above the portico. Over the main entrance, the royal coat of arms were cut in stone.

The building itself underwent extensions by renowned architect James Gandon (Pearce died young, robbing Ireland of a young architect of outstanding potential.) In particular, Gandon, who was responsible for three of Dublin's finest buildings, the Custom House, the Four Courts and the King's Inns, added on a new peers' entrance onto Westmoreland Street (shown above) at the east of the building between 1785 and 1789. Unlike the main entrance to the south, which came to be known as the House of Commons entrance, Gandon's peers' entrance used six Corinthian columns, at the request of peers who wished to have their entrance marked by a different look to the entrance of the commoners who used Ionic columns. Over the entrance, three statues were placed, representing Fortitude, Justice and Liberty. A curved wall joined the Pearce entrance to Gandon's extension. That this curved wall did not actually mark the exterior of the building but masked the actual uneven joins of some of the extension is shown in the view at the bottom of this page.

The curved wall, though an instantly recognisable aspect of the building today, in fact bears little resemblance to the building as it was in its parliamentary days. Gandon's wall was built of granite, with inset alcoves. Another extension was made on the west side into Foster place by another architect, Robert Parke, in 1787; while matching Gandon's portico, he tried a different and highly unsuccessful solution, linking the other portico to the main Pearce one by a set of ionic pillars. The result proved unattractive. When the Bank of Ireland took over the building, it created an architectural unity by replacing this set of ionic columns by a curved wall similar to that built on the east side by Gandon. Ionic columns were then added to both curved walls, given the extensions an architectural and visual unity that had been lacking and producing the building's exterior as it is today.

The interior of the Houses of Parliament contained one unusual and highly symbolic act. While in many converted parliamentary buildings where both houses met in the one building, both houses were given equality or indeed the upper house was given a more symbolic location within the building, in the Irish Houses of Parliament the House of Commons was given pride of place with its octagonal parliamentary chamber located in the centre of the building. In contrast, the smaller House of Lords was demoted to a sideline position nearby. However the domed House of Commons chamber was later destroyed by fire. A less elaborate new chamber, minus its dome, was rebuilt in the same location and opened in 1796, four years before the House of Commons' ultimate abolition.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Design of the new building", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki