Frank McDonald

So what are we going to do with the Central Bank after it moves from Dublin’s Dame Street to the Anglo Irish “hulk” on North Wall Quay? According to Res Publica, a group of six young architects, it could become a new central library for the city.
This was the most popular idea to emerge from an exhibition and brainstorming session they held last week in the former UCD building on Earlsfort Terrace, not least because the library would give the building a real public use – for the first time.
Other ideas, some of them tongue-in-cheek, included a missile silo, a bird sanctuary, a prison for errant bankers, an enterprise centre with incubator space for start-up companies, a contemporary art museum and a 24-hour Tesco with a nightclub on its upper levels.