The Guinness Power Station

As its recently been made a protected structure by Dublin City Council  – one of only a limited number of 20th century buildings in the city on the Record of Protected Structures – we take a look at one of The Liberties’ most iconic modern buildings. 

The world-famous St James’s Gate Brewery is the largest industrial complex in Dublin city centre, covering a site of almost 60 acres at the west end of the Liffey quays, and with two distinct areas straddling the north and south of James’s Street.

The original brewery lands to the south of James’s Street were leased in 1759 by Arthur Guinness, with gradual expansion by Guinness & Sons in the 19th century pushing the boundaries further west and north. From the mid-1880s to the early 1900s, the brewery was extensively rebuilt to become one of the world’s largest breweries of the time.

A new power station for the brewery was commissioned in 1943 to replace a previous power station, located near the Grand Canal Harbour. By the early 1940s it had become apparent that the Grand Canal Harbour power station was no longer fit for purpose. An English architect F.P.M. Woodhouse, who was the in-house architect for Guinness & Sons, was commissioned to design a new power station, to be situated on a site north of James’s Street. Woodhouse died suddenly in 1946, while construction of the power station was underway, and it fell to Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, who were appointed as engineers to the project in 1945, and the contractors McLaughlin and Harvey to complete the project.

The design of the Guinness Power Station was clearly  influenced by similar structures in England from the 1930s and 1940s. Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners worked with Sir Giles Gilbert Scott on the construction of the Guinness Brewery in London (1933-5), which the Power Station bears some resemblance to, while Scott was the architect on a number of power stations in England including Battersea (1929-33), Southbank (1947-63) and Rye House (1953-4). Cliff Quay Power Station, Ipswich was designed by Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners (1949-52) with stepped floor levels, vertical windows and the symmetrical arrangement of chimneystacks bearing resemblance to the Guinness Power Station.

War shortages had an impact on construction of the power station. Cement and steel were in short supply as both were rationed and were increasingly expensive. A shortage of coal after the War encouraged research into alternative fuels. As a result, the new power plant boilers were designed to work with both oil and coal. A coal conveyor was provided, leading to Victoria Quay. Similar to many of the power stations built in England in the mid-twentieth century, the steelframe was clad in brick, with one million Kingscourt ‘rustic’ bricks used, including 250,000 special order bricks for curved and angled corners, which were used to create variety in the window opes. NORI acid resistant engineering bricks were used to the interior of the chimneys and a hardwearing fire-resistant block called Granwood was used for the flooring. The interior was tiled to a height of 1.9m with plaster above. The coal conveyor was sheeted in copper with copper also used on hipped roofs to the upper levels; the remainder of the roofs were felt-covered. The windows were galvanised steel.