Bono looks to Fair City’s future
“No one so far has had a fine or gone to prison - but we are hopeful,” the rock star said.
Bono was speaking at the announcement of the band’s new 3m state-of-the-art recording studios. To be located on the top two storeys of a six-storey building, they are expected to be ready in about three years’ time.
Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) is swapping the new facility at Britain Quay for U2’s current studios, due to be pulled down under a 2bn redevelopment programme. Last year the band dropped an objection to a demolition order on the Hanover Quay studios in return for DDDA providing a suitable alternative venue.
“We are going to stay where we are until the new studio is ready,” said Bono. The band has been recording at Hanover Quay since 1994. The latest album, All that You Can’t Leave Behind, which was recorded there, sold more than 10 million copies.
“This city was a very, very beautiful city,” said Bono yesterday. “Now, with imagination, it’s being remade and the new Dublin is something I am really excited about. And actually I like a lot of the buildings around here. I’d like the buildings to feel like the future.”
He added: “For all the years of supposed prosperity, Dublin has precious few extraordinary buildings to claim. I think builders and developers have gotten away with a lot over the years. I think that’s changing. I think Dublin’s looking handsome, a lot more than it used to. It was an extraordinary city way back when.”
DDDA is launching an open, international competition to design a 60-metre landmark tower, which will include the U2 recording studios, a bar and restaurant. U2 will have a member, possibly Adam Clayton, on the jury which will select the successful architectural design.
The 24-acre Hanover Quay site is needed to allow public amenity works related to the Grand Canal Harbour development. It will incorporate shops, restaurants, pubs, residential properties and a public amenity area along the waterfront.
Referring to this development, Bono said it was “hard to argue with people who know what they are doing” and the DDDA knew what they were doing at Hanover Quay. He continued: “It’s very hard to quantify what that studio where we worked for the last years means to us. There isn’t really a price you can put on it - and whatever the Dublin Docks Authority offer us is not going to be enough.”
Bono recalled how he used to walk around the Grand Canal Basin, when the band recorded at Windmill Lane in the 1980s. “It is a very beautiful place to be. We just have to get out of the way. It is not the best thing for U2 but it is... the best thing for the city.”
Said DDDA chief executive Peter Coyne: “We are hugely excited that U2 are staying in the area. They add value in the broadest sense to the whole area. They are part of the energy that if it wasn’t already there we would be trying to invent.”
