Monday 14 July 2008

Dublin says yes to giant sculpture in the Liffey

Dublin city council has granted planning permission for Antony Gormley’s 48-metre statue in the River Liffey.

Objectors to the Iron Man wire sculpture had included a group of 96 nearby residents who said it would tower over their houses on the quays. There is a four-week deadline for objections to be submitted to An Bord Pleanala.

There were fears that the statue would become a roost for birds and be coated with droppings. One of the conditions set down by the council is that the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), which commissioned the statue, must submit full details of its cleaning arrangements, including the name of the company given the contract to wash it and what times it will do its work.

The DDDA also has to lodge a security “to secure the satisfactory maintenance or/and dismantling and disposal of the structure if and where necessary”.

The authority has also been told that its workmen cannot do construction work on Sundays or public holidays and must finish at 6pm on weekdays and 2pm on Saturdays. The sculpture will take about eight months to erect and will cost €1.6m.

The DDDA said the conditions imposed by the council were “easily satisfiable”.

The authority could have located the statue, which is 80% the height of Liberty Hall, in an area where it needed no planning permission, but chose to site it at City Quay on the seaward side of the Sean O’Casey bridge, to allow for public input.

Gormley, the London-based designer best known for his Angel of the North statue near Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, modelled the sculpture on his own body.

Sunday Times

www.buckplanning.ie

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