Open House - alway one of my favourite events in Dublin, where we get the chance to snoop around places we normally can't get access to. 

I've been meaning to get down to Pigeon House Generating Station for years, but it never worked out for me. 

I was delighted this year to get to see the place. It's a magnificent structure, and one of Ireland's largest protected structures. In a different city it would already be a major cultural destination. It could be our own version of the Tate modern; a place capable of holding major national and international exhibitions, while celebrating the architectural heritage associated with our industrial awakenings. 

Instead it's been left to decay...held together by little more than its own mass and rusty bolts. I feel that the recent location nearby of the Poolbeg incinerator was a dreadful piece of muddied planning. It has provided a complicated context for the area's future redevelopment. 

It has effectively designated this section of the coastline as an industrial wasteland. They might say that emission levels are strictly controlled and all that palaver, but there is an undeniable bang of something unnatural when you're down there...such a shame.

And all the while the city continues to stretch eastward...

I wish Dublin City Architects well with their endeavours to protect and revive this important building. It deserves it.