Sunlight Chambers, Dublin 2

Designed as Dublin offices for Lord Lever (of Lever Brothers), by the Liverpool architect Edward Ould who also designed Port Sunlight.

Built in a romantic Italianate style with its wide overhanging eaves, tiled roof, and arcaded upper floors, the building boasts one of the most unusual architectural features in Dublin - two multicoloured terracotta friezes depicting the history of hygiene.

Until recently these friezes were quite dirty but a restoration last year restored the building to its multicoloured brilliance.
The building met with resistance from architects in Dublin at the time due to the fact that a foreign architect had been hired (Lutyens also had this problem around this time). Upon its completion, ‘The Irish Builder' referred to it as the ugliest building in Dublin, while a few years later the same journal called it ‘pretentious and mean'.
Around the corner on the quay facade, there is a strange little hiberno-romanesque detail which seems at odds with the rest of the building.

The colourful, Italianate-styled building, at the corner of Parliament Street and Essex Quay, is one of Dublin's most unusual and best-loved buildings.