Cork author: 'Maybe we should do a Barcelona-type thing' with former Debenhams building

Tom Spalding, who teaches visual communications at the Munster Technological University in Cork, has published an impressive, well-illustrated book, Designed For Life: Architecture And Design In Cork City 1900-1990.

While Cork’s political and military history have been comprehensively studied, physical changes to the city have been “largely ignored, and little published on the houses, pubs, factories and other quotidian buildings where its people spent their lives,” according to the author.

His Cork University Press-published tome, which includes some interior and graphic design as well as a map and glossary, makes for interesting reading.

Tom, who has an engineering degree from University College Dublin, a Masters in Design from the Royal College of Art in London, and a PhD from Technological University Dublin, its to a love/hate relationship with Cork. He moved to the city from his native England in 1978 when his father, a chemist, took up a job at UCC. Tom grew up in Rochestown and Bishopstown and now lives in Sunday’s Well.

As far as the young Tom was concerned, design happened elsewhere. “If you went to the library or watched a TV programme (about architectural design), it would be about Paris, New York, London – and maybe Dublin.

“My feeling was that design was a metropolitan thing. It didn’t happen in little places like Cork and Limerick. Obviously, it did happen. It was just my ignorance, and that’s one of the reasons I decided to do the book.”

What does Tom hate about Cork?

“It consistently fails to reach its potential when it comes to things like the quality of the local environment. The walk along the Marina for example, would never have happened if it wasn’t for covid.” 

Tom speaks of an ‘inertia’ to take on new projects.

“We think of ourselves as a poor city, that we’re not worth it.” But some would say Cork has a superiority complex, often braggingly referred to by locals as ‘the real capital’. Tom thinks that is “a bit of a front. We talk a good game but at the end of the day, we feel we don’t deserve the things we see in other cities. We travel to Spain and Italy and come back saying ‘they have this and that.’ But we go back to the same way of doing things.”

While Cork, like the rest of the country, has a housing crisis, Tom says that compared to how people’s grandparents and great grandparents lived, we are in “very comfortable lives.”

What does Tom love about Cork?

“I love the sense of place, the location and the way it sits between the hills. I love the fact the river confuses everybody, coming from everywhere. And it’s a cliché but there is a great buzz in Cork. People comment on it in of the atmosphere on the streets in the evening. That’s another good thing covid did for us – outside dining. On a good summer’s evening, Cork is a fabulous space.”

Empty heritage buildings are frequently seen as a problem to get around rather than offering opportunities. “We go to Riga, Krakow and Paris and see old buildings there being re-used as cultural spaces. Then we come back and see places like the old ESB power station on Caroline Street empty for 15 or 20 years. You’d imagine that would make a wonderful contemporary art or music space.”

That building was used temporarily by the Triskel when the Tobin Street arts centre was redeveloped. But Tom is right. It’s a missed opportunity and another example of waste.

The old Debenhams, which started life as Roches Stores on Patrick Street, has been empty for five years, contributing to a sense of dereliction.

“It would be against all of the trends in retail for a new department store to open there,” says Tom. “Maybe we should do a Barcelona-type thing, with small shops on the ground floor and the rest of the building converted into apartments. You could have a green space in the centre, a bit like the Elysian.”

The northside/southside divide is something Corkonians absorb from an early age. “But people who are not from Cork don’t have any baggage about the northside, saying it’s a great place to live with local amenities, bus services and it’s not that far from the city. The areas of the northside developed in the 1930s like lower Gurranabraher are pretty well-laid out with a lot of public space.”

Across the river, Tom says the planning of Ballyphehane “is fantastic. It was entirely council-built. There’s a variety of house styles there and lots of open spaces, schools and shops.”

But Tom says it’s no longer feasible to keep building ‘low’ and outwards. Not that he is advocating more Elysian-type buildings with its 19 storeys. But apartment buildings of around six to eight storeys would justify a light rail system with enough population density to sustain it.

This is the 50th anniversary of the death of Cork sculptor and stone carver, Seamus Murphy, who crops up frequently in Tom’s book. Seamus worked closely with the Dwyer merchant prince family, deg the Blackpool Church of the Annunciation (built by William Dwyer) as well as plaques for buildings and carvings of statues and gravestones.

Tom, who draws attention in his book to the detail in buildings, says the disused Savoy, which used to be a cinema before subsequent incarnations, has a proscenium arch over the stage area, modelled on the Rialto bridge in Venice.

It’s not for nothing that Cork has been called ‘the Venice of the south’.

Love it or loathe it, Cork has a hold on its denizens. It could do with an injection of higher self-esteem.

Designed For Life, by Tom Spalding is published by Cork University Press at €49.