Art Deco Ireland |
Vitrolite | |
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![]() Terenure
Turnover in the ownership of businesses means that shop design now changes very rapidly indeed, as any examination of photographs of street scenes from even the very recent past will show.
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Vitrolite is a patented
form of architectural sheet glass introduced during the 1930's.
Once reasonably common on certain shop facades, where the smooth, easy to clean, surface made it popular with pharmacies and with food establishments in particular, it has now become very rare in Ireland. Sometimes it was used with glass bricks. It was one way of marking the modernity of an establishment during the 1930's. This type of facade was still popular until the late 1950's. Most often seen in a plain Black colour, this example in Terenure, Dublin is in a nice combination of green and black with period lettering. Even the ventilation grating is unusual. A serious interior fire has led to closure some years ago, but
the facade seems largely undamaged, except for the window glass.
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