Sunlight Chambers is a commercial office building on the corner of Parliament Street and Essex Quay in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. It was designed by architect

Edward Ould Edward Augustus Lyle Ould (1852–1909) was an English architect. Ould was a son of the rector of Tattenhall, Cheshire. He became a pupil of the Chester architect John Douglas and in 1886 he joined in partnership with the Liverpool architect G ...

in an

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

style and was named after Lever Brothers' Sunlight detergent brand.

History

Lever Brothers was founded in 1895 by brothers William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). Together with chemist William Hough, the brothers created a soap that used

glycerin Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...

and vegetable oils such as

palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced from ...

instead of

tallow Tallow is a rendering (industrial), rendered form of beef or mutton fat, primarily made up of triglycerides. In industry, tallow is not strictly defined as beef or mutton fat. In this context, tallow is animal fat that conforms to certain techn ...

. The resulting soap was free-lathering. At first, it was named Honey Soap but later became " Sunlight Soap". In 1899, the brothers leased land opposite

Grattan Bridge Grattan Bridge () is a road bridge spanning the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland, and joining Capel Street to Parliament Street and the south quays. History The first bridge on this site was built by Sir Humphrey Jervis in 1676. It was named ...

on the banks of the River Liffey to set up a Dublin branch of their company. They hired Liverpool architect Ould, who had previously designed various buildings for the company's

Port Sunlight Port Sunlight is a model village and suburb in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside. It is located between Lower Bebington and New Ferry, on the Wirral Peninsula. Port Sunlight was built by Lever Brothers to accommodate workers in it ...

model village near Liverpool. The Dublin building was designed and constructed between 1900 and 1910 and named after their then-famous soap brand. In the late 1990s Gilroy McMahon architects restored the building and repainted the exterior in a 'light umber' colour.

Design

Ould designed the building in the Italianate style. This was unusual for the area, which was dominated by genteel

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

and Victorian architecture that tended to be externally restrained and internally decorative. According to Ireland's National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, the building is marked by distinctive

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ad ...

panels that depict the history of soap production. While Essex Quay was laid out in the 1720s, Sunlight Chambers is the oldest remaining structure in the riverside area. The sculptor

Conrad Dressler Conrad Dressler (22 May 1856 – 3 August 1940) was an English sculptor and potter. Dressler was born in London and studied sculpture at the Royal College of Art. He was later influenced by the Arts & Crafts Movement. In the 1880s, he worked at ...

was engaged to design much of the external frieze work on the building.

Sister building in Newcastle upon Tyne

At almost the same time, Lever Brothers built a branch in Newcastle upon Tyne, which they also called Sunlight Chambers. Although the Newcastle branch was designed in a modified

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style rather than an Italianate style, both Sunlight Chambers feature characteristic circumferential friezes.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures completed in 1910 Buildings and structures in Dublin (city) 20th-century architecture in the Republic of Ireland