Architect’s family considers conservation order to halt ESB plan

When controversy erupted in the mid-1960s over plans for its construction, a revered architectural expert opined that the ESB headquarters which now stands on Dublin’s Fitzwilliam St was only replacing “one damned house after another ... a rubbish uneven series”.

One would have to wonder whether Sir John Summerson, an English architectural historian, had been given a look at the plans for the building which would replace the 16 Georgian homes of which he was being so dismissive.

At the time the ESB’s drive to erase the properties was met with abject horror in many quarters — huge public meetings were held to discuss the plans. The Irish Georgian Society even hired its own internationally regarded architect Sir Albert Richardson to rubbish the power company’s claims that the houses were degrading while residents in the surrounding streets petitioned the “ground landlord”, Lord Pembroke, saying their properties would be devalued by the ESB’s new proposals.