Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre was built in the downbeat 1980s and somehow manages to look sugary and sentimental, like an English pier in 1899. With its interior white railings and arcade, the word chintzy does not even come close.

Outside? It’s either too hard to maintain all the ornamental hanging baskets and white girding, or no one is bothered to. The effect is a huge, grimy, twee building plonked right at the top of Grafton Street, Dublin.

Yet the Save Stephen’s Green Campaign has conjured 24,000 signatures and lodged its appeal with An Coimisiún Pleanála. In late April, DTDL Ltd received planning permission for a €100 million project on the site – which will involve partly demolishing the centre and rebuilding it.

The new design – courtesy of BKD Architects and O’Donnell Tuomey – will introduce office space, a brick facade and three levels of shops. It may not win any awards – this is not exactly the work of Norman Foster or Zaha Hadid.

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