Herbert Simms: An Architect for the People

by Lindie Naughton

Dublin’s teeming slums, long regarded as the worst in Europe, were teetering on the brink of structural and sanitary public catastrophe during the early twentieth century. To tackle the crisis, Herbert Simms was appointed the city’s first housing architect. During a sixteen-year period, from 1932 until 1948, Simms and his team planned, commissioned and built an astounding 17,000 homes –some as inner-city flat complexes, others as family houses in newly-created suburbs such as Crumlin and Cabra.

Like the city’s acclaimed Georgian squares, the Simms-designed Corporation flats in particular have stood the test of time, injecting a touch of art deco and modernist glamour to neglected neighbourhoods. This comprehensive guide to the Simms buildings also highlights the many struggles with politicians and bureaucrats Simms and his staff experienced as they did their best to build well-designed, affordable housing for the people of Dublin.

Genres: Irish Literature

264 pages, Paperback

Published January 6, 2024

Reviews

[Felicity · Rating 2 out of 5]

A recent review of this book effectively damned it with faint praise by characterising it as a survey of more scholarly research repurposed for the general reader, predicting that it would doubtless fare well as a seasonal gift. (N.b. books, like dogs, are for life, not for Christmas!) Now that I have read this book and the author's acknowledgements, my verdict is a little less charitable: having two architects in the family scarcely establishes one's architectural credentials. Naughton proves an inelegant and unreliable narrator of Dublin's architectural history in the first half of the twentieth century as, despite the inclusion of a bibliography, she provides no references in support of her assertions. Did Michael Scott claim that Walter Gropius was 'horrified by the poor quality of recent Dublin buildings, in particular the Corporation flat blocks'(139)? Did 'politicians at the time [believe] that citizens who owned their own houses would have a greater stake in the country' (173)? The reader must take it on trust. Many readers would like to believe William O'Brien's insistence that rents for social housing should not exceed ten per cent of wages (83), but some of us would like to see the evidence. Those who had hoped to learn more about the people's architect may be disappointed to discover that Simms makes an inexplicably late entrance into Naughton's monograph, the first third of which provides a potted history of the rise and fall of Dublin's once prestigious tenements. For a more substantial and authoritative assessment of his contribution I'll continue to rely on Rowley, McManus, Brady et al.