Dublin City Council wins architectural award for 14 Henrietta St
Published on 29th February 2024
Dublin City Council is delighted to have received the RIAI (Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland) Silver Medal for Conservation and Restoration for its 14 Henrietta St project for the period 2017-2019.
This is a very prestigious award, given to projects of ‘exceptional merit’ and is awarded several years after completion so that the success of the building can be confirmed by the passage of time.
The 14 Henrietta St museum opened to the public in 2018 as a social history museum which showcases the daily life of Dublin’s North Inner City from 1877 to the late 1970s when it was a tenement building. It also features restored rooms on the basement, ground and first floors that illustrate what life would have been like in the 18th and 20th centuries.
“I want to congratulate Dublin City Council on this prestigious award,” said the Lord Mayor of Dublin Daithí de Róiste. The extensive conservation and refurbishment work that has been carried out has returned this magnificent building to the people of Dublin. "They and visitors alike have been able to visit and experience this unique social history museum, since it opened to the public in 2018. Its enduring success is a testament to the quality of the building’s conservation and the unique approach taken by the City Council to the interpretation of the history of the house and the families who once lived there.”
Visitors to 14 Henrietta St can walk the house over three floors and explore the tenement history of Dublin while experiencing and interacting with rooms recreated from different time periods from the house’s Georgian origins in the late 1740s to the 1970s when it ceased being a tenement.
“This is the third major architectural prize awarded to the 14 Henrietta Street project,” said Charles Duggan, Heritage Officer with Dublin City Council. “In 2018 it won two RIAI awards, Best Conservation Project and Best overall project nationally. The Silver Medal for Conservation is a wonderful recognition of the City Council’s work to save, restore No.14 and create the museum there over a ten-year period guided by the Henrietta Street Conservation Plan and by Shaffrey Architects, and their team.”
The last Dublin City Council project to be awarded the Silver Medal for Conservation was City Hall, which won for the time period 1999 – 2001.
ENDS
Notes to the Editor:
14 Henrietta St is run by the Dublin City Council Culture Company, which operates cultural initiatives and facilities in the city. It is open Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 4pm and is only accessible by guided tour. Tours take place on the hour, lasting approximately 75 minutes and pre-booking is advised. For more information, visit https://scanner.topsec.com/?d=1962&r=show&u=www.henriettast.ie&t=7d98f7ce8654c50dfdf6b7e3a835948da9ac2d89
14 Henrietta Street was built circa 1748 by Luke Gardiner, who laid out the street in the late 1720s. Until 1800, the house was occupied by high ranking members of the ruling elite in Ireland. In 1877 No. 14 Henrietta Street was converted to a tenement building and lettings were advertised in the following year. The conversion to tenements created seventeen one, three and four-roomed flats, where over 100 people lived in the building by 1911. The last residents left the house in the late 1970s.
The conservation of the house and its conversion into a museum was funded by Dublin City Council and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Centenary Capital Programme.