Casino At Marino Interior
Use the menu below to navigate the Casino or simply scroll down. Click on the floor plans to see larger versions.
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Designed by the Scottish architect Sir William Chambers in the 1750s for James Caulfeild, the first Earl of Charlemont, the Casino at Marino is a remarkable neo-classical structure. The Casino was built by Sir William Chambers in 1769 in the grounds of the first Earl of Charlemont's villa of Marino at Clontarf on the outskirts of Dublin. Chambers had built the Earl's town house in Dublin in 1763. Posts about The Casino at Marino written by Robert. It’s a perfect little building: a gem of Irish architecture. It lies in an oasis of parkland on the outskirts of Dublin city – all that’s left of an expansive eighteenth century country house demesne, now all but engulfed by housing estates. Sep 16, 2019 - Explore donald gosser's board 'Casino at Marino' on Pinterest. See more ideas about Casino, Marino, Neo-classical building.
An interactive tour of the interior of the Casino is also available; click on the image to access. Captured for FDR Media by Declan Clancy in spring 2016.
Video Tour
Casino At Marino Interior Map
This ten-minute video tour of the Casino, given by guide Kevin in the costume of an Irish Volunteer, was recorded by Near TV for Culture Night 2012.
Pantry
The practicality and the beauty of the building are intertwined. The first place we see this is in the Pantry. There are twelve Doric columns around the building, which are identical to look at. However, four of them are hollow, and drain water down from the flat roof. Bronze chains originally carried the water down, but modern pipes are in place now. An example of one of these hollow columns can be seen here, with its curved, fitted door in the back.
The Pantry is also the only room at basement level to contain a door to the outside (the main door is opened from the passageway). Its location close to the long tunnel means that it was probably used as a route from the Casino to the tunnels opposite.
Front Porch
From the front steps of the Casino, an idea of its original landscaped context can be glimpsed. Sheep grazed peacefully across the parkland that surrounded it. Stepping down and viewing the Casino from the ground below the front door, you can really see how it appears as a one-room temple from the outside, with a floor plan in the shape of a Greek cross. The windows are cleverly placed, and the stairways and floors that cross them disguised. From this angle, and by walking around the exterior, the statues can also be seen. At the front of the building stand Ceres and Bacchus, and at the back are Apollo and Venus. These represented the enjoyment and abundance that was intended for the Casino. The urns on the roof (disguised chimneys) can also be seen from this angle. The lions that guard each corner are Egyptian in style.
The exterior of the large front door was made from Irish oak. Chambers’ written instructions were to leave it to age naturally, so that it would eventually turn silver and blend in with the Portland stone which surrounded it. Walking back through this door shows very clearly the contrast between the exterior and the interior scale of the building. Only part of the door opens, and it looks very different from inside the Vestibule.
Vestibule
The inside of the great front door is significantly smaller than its outward appearance, and is made of rosewood mahogany. A rope which hangs down from just above this door shows the concealed window above it, which was pulled down to cover the entryway and let extra light into the room. A number of other tricks are used to make this tiny entrance hall seem much larger than it is. The curved walls, the Pantheon-style domed ceiling, the use of a false door, and the all-white colour scheme all added to the sense of space.
The plasterwork in this room shows classical motifs of agriculture and culture. Musical instruments are especially prominent, such as the lyre of Apollo. In this room is displayed a portrait of James Caulfeild, the 1st Earl of Charlemont, with the Casino just visible in the background. Also on display is the Greek stele which once formed part of the collection the Earl displayed here.
Saloon
This is the main apartment of the Casino. In 1769, Charlemont wrote to Chambers and recommended that “…the Entablature, doorcase etc of the room should be dead white touched with blue and that the cove parts of the ceiling… be of a more brilliant white.” The colour scheme of the room was related to the ornaments it once displayed – primarily the 12″ by 5″ carved slab of lapis lazuli on the marble chimney-piece. Across the room was once a table with a matching lapis lazuli top.
The centrepiece of the ceiling is the face of the sun-god, Apollo, echoing the sacrificial fire and smoke-hole that would have formed the centrepiece of a real Greek temple. There appears to be only one door in this room – the one leading in from the Vestibule – but two gib doors (doors disguised as part of the wall they are set into) hide in the two north corners. Each leads to two more rooms – the west to the China Closet and the east to the Zodiac Room.
Zodiac Room
This room also functions as the library, and shares the eastern arm of the Greek cross plan with the building’s main staircase, so the size of the room is very small. The window shows how this staircase is hidden from the outside; from the inside there are twelve panes of glass, whereas from the outside, there are thirty. The ceiling features a large dome, around which appear the symbols of the zodiac. A century ago, these symbols were painted black, and the interior of the dome was painted with the constellation of the night sky, as it had appeared on the night of Lord Charlemont’s birth (the 18th of August 1728).
A letter from George Montagu to Horace Walpole in 1761 said that “I have been to see Lord Charlemont’s collection. He has some charming things that would merit a show even at Strawberry. His medals are very fine, a charming Titian of Borgia, two Carlo Marats, a Claude, two fine vases, a Queen Elizabeth, a lion’s skin of yellow that serves for a veil, a brave collection of books, etc.”
China Closet
This room occupies the western arm of the Greek cross. It was originally intended as a room that displayed miniatures and busts of Charlemont’s friends – people such as Swift, Grattan, Flood, and Fitzgerald. It has been known as the China Closet since the nineteenth century, when the second Lady Charlemont used it. She added to the decoration of the room, particularly with the Victorian stucco of interlaced vines. The ceiling and cornice survive from the original scheme. The cove of the ceiling displays agricultural symbols.
The second Lady Charlemont was born as Anne Bermingham, and she married Lord Charlemont’s son, Francis, in 1802. She was a wealthy heiress, which allowed Francis to maintain the Marino estate after the great debts he had inherited on the death of his father.
Landing
All of the upstairs rooms suffered during the Casino’s period of dereliction, as the flat roof had fallen in. Therefore these rooms may have once been more highly decorated than they appear today. However, at the end of the landing, above the main staircase, is an exuberant shell design in eighteenth-century plasterwork, which may give an idea of how the rest of the cornices and covings looked during the building’s original period.
There is a small stairs behind a cleverly-hinged door on the landing, which leads up to the roof of the Casino. The roof was a very popular place to visit during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, due to the extravagant views it afforded down across the peaceful meadows to the seashore. Lord Charlemont likened this view to the Bay of Naples, and the peak of the Sugarloaf in the distance to Mount Vesuvius.
State Room
This magnificent, although diminutive, bedroom was recreated from a state of ruin during the restoration period. Bits of columns, gold decoration, and the blue paint colour, were found in rubble on the floor, and the modern restoration matched painstakingly with these samples. The feet of the original bed were also found, and are on display in the anteroom attached. It was a type of chaise longue.
The extravagance of this room is in contrast with the restraint and understatement of the below rooms, and it has been suggested that Chambers did not have a hand in its design. There are no documented connections between Chambers and the top floor at all, and it is possible that when he ceased his work on the project (due to late payment of bills), it was intended to have just one floor above the basement level. On display in this room are Chambers’ original drawings for the Casino project, as well as some views of the estate in the nineteenth century.
Peter's Reflections A monthly column by ICAA President, Peter Lyden
Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.
-Thomas Moore
Along with 15 fellow ICAA patrons and friends, I recently had the pleasure of experiencing Great Houses and Gardens of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, one of the ICAA’s travel programs. Our trip included many highlights, but the gracious welcome we received from the owners of the homes that we visited made an indelible impact on me. It was a true delight to learn about the history of these homes through each owner’s personal tales and family lore.
All of us on the trip came away with a greater appreciation for the “uniqueness” of classical architecture and interiors of the Irish Big House. We were struck by how the great Georgian estates differentiated themselves from their English influences, creating their own unique tradition.
These distinctive traits were observed in so many aspects of the Irish Big Houses, from interior design, to architectural details, to landscape features. Many Irish Georgian homes have severe fronts with scaled down ornaments. Flanking wings were often added to the central block at a later period to make these houses much grander in scale and appearance.
Inside each home was a magical surprise of fanciful mouldings and decorations like nowhere else. Mahogany imported from Cuba was a highly sought after commodity for the Irish. The wood landed in the city of Cork where Irish estate keepers had the first choice of the very best wood pieces for their furniture and decor. Seeing these fanciful wooden pieces in so many of the houses where we stayed was an absolute joy. The patterns in the furniture, such as goblins carved into tables, were exuberant and uniquely Irish, demonstrating what Desmond Guinness calls “Irish Fantasy at work.”
In the typical Irish classical style, staircases in many of the homes are located to the side of the structure. This is a feature that I particularly admired, as it gave the first hall clean, proportional, and classical lines reminiscent of Palladio’s Villas.
In Ireland it’s common to see two interior design styles within the same house. The Gothic style (à la Strawberry Hill) did have an influence on Irish homes, but only partially. This was the case at Grey Abbey, a classically designed Georgian Home with a drawing room converted to the Gothic style. While the Irish may have converted a room or a few rooms to a new style, they would not change the entire house.
Although the Irish Big Houses had their own tradition and unique aesthetics, the impact of great British designers and architects remains. The influence of Capability Brown is evident at many of the sites, where the houses were designed in natural settings with flower and vegetable beds that were kept away from the homes in walled gardens. Unlike many English estates, the homes that we visited have stayed “true to form” and have not added Victorian garden designs.
Casino At Marino Interior Restaurant
Many of the great British architects produced their best works in Ireland, without ever stepping foot on Irish soil. Sir William Chambers produced one of Europe’s finest classical buildings – the Casino at Marino – for James Caulfield, the first Earl of Charlemont. Additionally, James Wyatt who visited Ireland in one brief trip designed one of the most perfect, classically designed homes at Castle Coole. The famed Lafranchini brothers, known for their ornamental plasterwork, were revered in Ireland and even resided at Castletown until their deaths, as if they were members of the Conolly family.
Casino At Marino Interior &
The ICAA’s travel programs provide a wholly unique opportunity to experience classical and historic homes and sites firsthand. If you’ve been a participant on any of the ICAA’s travel programs, we’d love to hear highlights of your trip in the comments below. To view upcoming travel destinations with the ICAA, please visit www.classicist.org.