When assessing the best bits of this city’s built environment, it’s tempting not to look a whole lot further than Dublin’s Georgian houses and their fading elegance or the bombastic Starchitecture of the heady mid-00s found in Grand Canal and the Docklands. Although these are both acceptable, some of Dublin’s true architectural gems are visions of the mid-century Modernist movement. Many of these jewels have dulled over time but don’t deserve to be forgotten. Admittedly, exteriors of glass, steel and concrete are by no means universally adored but they ought to be understood and appreciated in terms of their historical context. These buildings are progressive in the ideals they represent, reflecting an effort to break with Ireland’s mid century conservatism.

5. Fitzwilton House (1969), Ronald Lyon Estate Architects.

A Brutalist tower which rises up from the canal where Dublin 4 meets Dublin 2, Fitzwilton House is at odds with its Georgian setting and is complex and challenging at first glance. Concrete columns and stone mullions between window openings enhance the building’s verticality. These hard elements create a tough and vigorous skeletal exterior that may appear unwelcoming to some but is intriguing and inviting in its uniqueness, and is characteristic of a movement which grew directly out of Modernism. If nothing else, it’s a lesson in successfully circumnavigating strict city planning permission laws.

4. Restaurant Building, University College Dublin (1968), Robin Walker.

This low-slung structure is dropped into a deep man-made well, allowing freedom in the three storey spatial layout whilst creating a discrete profile which does not impose itself on the landscape of the campus. Transparency is key — glass curtain walls create a light-filled space, helping fuel a conversation between outdoor and indoor. Similarly, the architectural elements are proudly displayed becoming an integral element of design as much as function. Heavy concrete overhangs create drama from the interplay of light and shade. The horizontal emphasis of the exterior alongside the free plan inside are somewhat reminiscent of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

3. Hawkins House (1962), Thomas Bennett.

Admittedly, despite housing the Department of Health, Hawkins House looks less than sanitary in the cold light of day. It’s difficult to see past the grime, but with a little imagination and mental elbow grease, its merits begin to shine. Several Corbusien tenets of International Modernism can be identified, and should be appreciated for being applied in a Dublin context. Slender columns or piloti raise the superstructure above the ground, long bands of ribbon windows counter the vertical thrust whilst the building’s mammoth footprint has a touch of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation or Pavillon Suisse about it. Hawkins House should be admired for the confidence and ambition it asserted in a still conservative 60s Dublin.

2. Bank of Ireland (1968), Ronald Tallon.

From one giant of Modernism to another, this building is unabashed in its appropriation of Mies Van der Rohe’s architecture, as seen in its elegant clean lines, machine aesthetic and “less is more” spirit. Even I-beams have been grafted onto the exterior as ornament à la Mies’ Seagram Building in New York, an external representation of the design’s inherent rationalism. Set within a courtyard, with the main block placed atop a podium, it is quietly monumental — an assertion of power probably desired by the original client. That it’s such a respectful homage to Mies, and made suitable to its context through its subdued profile, just about warrants the demolition of a large chunk of the Georgian neighbourhood in which it’s situated.

1. Busáras (1945), Michael Scott.

Praise for this building has yielded raised eyebrows too numerous to count but at the time of building, Scott’s bus station was a landmark piece of architecture not only in Ireland but also across post-war Europe. It represented an ambitious new Irish generation, keen to break with conservatism. The interiors are sumptuous and highly textural, expressed through exotic timbers, marbles and bronze amongst others. The building unites art and architecture; it is laced with the work of the late Patrick Scott whose mosaics brings a richness that elevates this building to a higher order of architecture. The top floor of the main block was originally planned as a nightclub but was, unsurprisingly, shot down by Archbishop McQuaid.