A large-scale extension of the Rotunda Hospital on Dublin’s Parnell Square would “destroy” the historic square’s setting and deprive future generations of babies of their heritage birthright, conservation bodies have said.
The hospital has applied to Dublin City Council to build a four-storey “critical care wing” along the western side of the Georgian park to “reduce risk to its patients and staff” and respond to the “critical care needs of the women and babies in its care”.
Heritage organisations the Dublin Civic Trust and An Taisce said the development would irrevocably damage the 18th-century square and the potential for its regeneration and restoration, once the hospital leaves the city.
Parnell Square is the oldest of Dublin’s five Georgian squares and is unique in having a large landmark building, the original 1750s Palladian hospital, built within the grounds of the park, or “pleasure gardens” at its southern side.
The current main entrance building was built in the western side of the park in 1991. To the north of this building, also on the western side of the park, the single-storey outpatient department, built from the 1930s, would be demolished to make way for the new four-storey development.
In its submission on the application the civic trust described the proposed building as a “marooned brick-clad cruise liner docked on Parnell Square” which was “gargantuan in scale” with a “crude shopping centre aesthetic”.
The hospital was attempting to play a “trump” card in the scheme’s “embedded presumption that its proposed use as a maternity facility takes precedence over other planning policies,” the trust said, adding “we strongly oppose the inference that built heritage should play second fiddle to healthcare concerns”.
Future generations, including “many thousands of babies” born annually in the Rotunda, “deserve better than this proposal that will deprive them of proper enjoyment of their built heritage to which they have a reasonable expectation of its proper preservation”, it said.
“In no uncertain terms, this development will have a devastating impact on the character of Parnell Square.”
An Taisce said the replacement of the single-storey structure with a four-storey block would fundamentally change the composition of the west side of Parnell Square as well as “significantly further eroding the relationship of the original Palladian building to its former pleasure gardens”.
Long-awaited improvements at the square were finally materialising it said with the renovations starting on the former Colaiste Mhuire buildings at Nos 22-27, as part of the new city library project, as well as significant conservation projects on a number of other Georgian houses.
An Taisce also questioned the rationale for such a significant construction project given the planned relocation of the hospital to Blanchardstown.
In hospital board’s application the plan to relocate the Rotunda to Connolly Hospital is acknowledged, but it “will not be possible for at least another 20 years”, it said.
Its architectural heritage impact assessment said the proposed development “forms part of a carefully considered approach to the provision of a sustainable future for the Rotunda Hospital on its existing city-centre campus”.
Particular care had been taken “to ensure that existing views of the northwest front of the Rotunda from within the hospital campus are maintained,” it said.
The proposed development included the removal of some modern structures from within the central garden of Parnell Square and their relocation to less prominent areas, including the basement of the proposed new building, it said. “This is recognised as an important first step to enhancing the setting of the (northwest) garden front of the 18th-century hospital building and facilitating an improved presentation of the former Rotunda gardens at the centre of the hospital site.”
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