Unlike writers and musicians, Ireland’s architects rarely become household names. Perhaps only three are well known among the general public — James Gandon (1743-1823), Michael Scott (1905-1989) and Sam Stephenson, who died suddenly ten days ago at the age of 72.

Each was a charismatic, colourful character who led an eventful life. Each attracted controversy and divided public opinion. They may not always have been on the side of the angels, but in the end that would not be held against them. Each was admired by their colleagues, despite the jealousies common among architects. Gandon’s reputation, based on the Custom House and Four Courts, is safe, as is Scott’s, thanks to Busaras and the award in 1975 of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, then the world’s greatest architectural accolade.

Sadly, however, Stephenson’s legacy is not as secure, partly because his career was so short — effectively over by the end of the 1970s, at an age when most architects are hitting their stride. Stephenson also became the lightning conductor in Ireland for popular discontent with the destruction of Georgian Dublin, and the modern architecture that replaced much of it. But his legacy is further complicated by much of his output being commercial buildings, such as offices and hotels, which are bound to be changed — perhaps replaced — in the short to medium term.

Earlier this year, the Central Bank sold off the bespoke furniture that Stephenson had designed for his greatest — and most controversial — work, on Dublin’s Dame Street. Last year, in another act of cultural vandalism, the ESB crudely painted over the subtly coloured, pre-cast concrete facade of its headquarters in Fitzwilliam Street, the building that launched, and would set the tone for the rest of, Stephenson’s career.

His father, a veteran of 1916 and the war of independence before helping to establish the Communist Party of Ireland, was a librarian and historian, a founding member of the Old Dublin Society and the editor of the Dublin Historical Record. The son could not be more different, however, describing himself as an “extreme capitalist,” impatient to change the face of Dublin.

Like his political friends and contemporaries, the young Fianna Fail ministers Charles Haughey, Donough O’Malley and Brian Lenihan, Stephenson became a key figure in the modernisation of Ireland in the 1960s. “Dublin has been decaying for 150 years,” he said. “It is unique in the problem it presents and in the opportunity also. It is the architect’s responsibility to make statements about his time and his buildings should not be afraid to reflect the age we live in.”

When he and Arthur Gibney (who died earlier this year) won the international competition for the ESB headquarters in 1962, they were just turning 30. Their win marked the emergence of a talented generation, one that would leave a bigger mark than any since Gandon. Planning the new ESB headquarters involved the demolition of 16 houses, part of the longest Georgian streetscape in the world, extending three-fifths of a mile from Holles Street hospital to Lower Leeson Street. Although the ESB had been planning their destruction since as far back as 1936, the controversy that developed was bitter and marked the birth of the conservation movement in Ireland.

The Old Dublin Society, the body which Stephenson’s father had helped establish, drew up a petition calling for the preservation of the houses that was signed by thousands, including Princess Grace of Monaco.

But architecture students chanted “Don’t make Dublin a museum,” while Stephenson wrote that Georgian houses were “never intended to last more than a lifetime.”

Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus in the 1920s, sent the architects a telegram urging them not to compromise, whatever happened. There was no fear that Stephenson would waver. But it was the eminent architectural historian Sir John Summerson, acting for the ESB, who pronounced the last rites over Fitzwilliam Street: “It has no special architectural coherence,” he said.

On September 30, 1964, the day before the republic’s first comprehensive planning act came into force, the Minister for Local Government, Neil Blaney, made an order granting full planning permission for the scheme.

In fact, about 1,200 Georgian buildings were demolished in Dublin in 18 months around this time — many on the order of Dublin Corporation’s dangerous buildings section, after tenement buildings in Bolton Street and Fenian Street suddenly collapsed in the summer of 1963, causing fatalities — but, in the public mind, the damage was done at Fitzwilliam Street.

When the ESB headquarters was completed, however, critical opinion admitted that “it is now seen to fit in reasonably well. The building is a coherent whole.” It is a view now widely accepted.