Originally built in 1968, Cork County Hall is very much a product of its time. As one of Ireland's few examples of large scale modernist design, the building is something of an unacknowledged treasure. Designed by the late Patrick L. McSweeney, Cork's county architect at the time, at almost 64 metres (211 ft.) County Hall was, and is, Ireland's tallest building and will remain so until the proposed U2 Tower rises above Dublin's docklands.
The machine age may have arrived in Ireland thirty years late, but in buildings such as Cork County Hall and Dublin's Busáras, arrive it did.
Like many modern—not to mention modernist—buildings, Cork County Hall has long been subject to pseudo populist scorn. Its strident form and pure, cool lines were interpreted as aloof and its maze of offices seemed to reinforce the popular perception of government as Byzantine.
Nevertheless, not all of the criticism was without merit. The great Irish tradition of failing to maintain buildings may have played a part in Cork County Hall's decline, but over time the structure revealed a few genuine flaws of its own: sixteen storeys of single glazing made the building incredibly difficult and expensive to heat, not to mention inefficient—shades of Le Corbusier's leaky roof. In fact, one member of Cork County Council staff told Construct Ireland: "It [the old building] was impossible to heat."
Now that local authorities across Ireland have started to become enthusiastic promoters of sustainable building and reducing fossil fuel dependency, leaving County Hall as it was would have been something of an embarrassment to Cork County Council.
The great Irish tradition of failing to maintain buildings may have played a part in Cork County Hall's decline, but over time the structure revealed a few genuine flaws of its own: sixteen storeys of single glazing made the building incredibly difficult and expensive to heat, not to mention inefficient shades of Le Corbusier's leaky roof
Worse still, the building had become a major health and safety issue. Concrete elements from the façade were breaking off and falling to the ground, necessitating the construction of a safety structure at ground level.
There remains in the public mind the fallacy that all large buildings are necessarily environmentally unsound and, conversely, that any sustainable buildings are bland, uninteresting and not aesthetically or intellectually challenging—just a few steps removed from wattle and daub or simple post and lintel structures.
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