The headquarters of Dublin City Council, known as the Civic Offices. The building of the first phase of this office complex in such a sensitive and heritage-rich area, caused much public outrage and protest in 1978. The site at Wood Quay contained one of the richest medieval and Viking archaeological finds in Europe and uncovered certainly the largest excavated medieval urban site in northern Europe. The City Council refused to cancel its plans for the site and, even though tens of thousands of people marched around the site in protest and the courts found in favour of the protesters to preserve the site for future generations, the council, winning on a technicality, forced ahead construction before the site could be fully explored or preserved.
Although around 2 million artefacts were discovered and preserved, the work was far from completed when the site was closed down.