3D print the Spire of Dublin
A free, printable model of the Spire of Dublin, a needle-thin spire rising above a wide street, with the buildings around it, generated from real map data in your browser.
Free, in your browser. Exports a slicer-ready 3MF.
About the Spire of Dublin
The Spire of Dublin, also called the Millennium Spire and the Monument of Light (An Túr Solais in Irish), is a pin-like stainless steel monument that rises 120 meters (390 ft). It stands on O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare, on the spot once held by Nelson's Pillar and, before that, a statue of William Blakeney. A competition launched in 1998 as part of an O'Connell Street redevelopment sought a replacement for the Pillar, and a committee chaired by Lord Mayor Joe Doyle picked the Spire from a large number of entries.
Ian Ritchie of Ian Ritchie Architects designed the Spire, aiming for a simple, dynamic elegance that bridges art and technology. It is built from eight hollow stainless steel cones stacked as sections, the longest 20 m (66 ft), erected from December 18, 2002 onward. The base is 3 m (9.8 ft) in diameter, and the form tapers to just 15 cm (5.9 in) across its top. Together the sections weigh 133.15 metric tons. Inside the fifth section up from the bottom sit two tuned mass dampers, engineered by Arup to reduce sway.
The steel was shot peened to alter the quality of the light it reflects. The pattern on the lower 10 m (33 ft) draws on a core sample of the rock under the site, blended with the DNA double helix. Bead blasting through rubber stencil masks produced it. When dusk falls, lights illuminate the base, while the upper 10 m (33 ft) shines through 11,884 holes with light-emitting diodes behind them.
How it prints
Make this print opens the generator on a 600 m square around the landmark. Buildings print at close to true scale, so the landmark grows with the print size.
| Print size | Landmark height | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 160 mm default | 33 mm | 1:3,750 |
| 200 mm | 41 mm | 1:3,000 |
| 256 mm | 52 mm | 1:2,344 |
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North
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East
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South
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West
- Needle-thin tip and taper
- The spire narrows to a very fine tip. Print friendly adapts thin parts like this to your print scale; Full detail keeps the true taper, best on a large print with 0.12 to 0.16 mm layers.
- Tall and standing alone
- The spire rises far above everything around it, so slow printing and good cooling help the upper section stay clean. A larger print also makes the slender shaft easier to see and read.
- One piece with the ground
- The Spire of Dublin is joined to the ground in the exported file, and the four-side check found no floating parts, so nothing needs gluing.
- Pick the detail for your nozzle
- In the Buildings settings, set Landmark detail to Print friendly to adapt thin parts and small details to the print scale. Full detail keeps every modeled feature, for larger prints or a finer nozzle.
- Colors
- Buildings, roads, water and ground arrive as separate filament slots in the 3MF. The Spire of Dublin takes the building color.
- File format
- You get a 3MF for Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or PrusaSlicer. Any of them can save it as STL if you need one.
About this model
The Spire of Dublin is one of more than 2,300 landmark models in Mini Skyline. They are made with AI, and each one is checked from four sides in its real surroundings before release. Everything around it is built from OpenStreetMap and Overture map data. If you would rather print the shape from map data, turn off Landmark models in the Buildings settings.
Common questions
Is there a Spire of Dublin STL I can download?
Mini Skyline builds the file for you in your browser and exports 3MF, which every major slicer opens. If you need an STL, open the 3MF in your slicer and export it from there.
How big can I print it?
Any print size from 40 mm across. The Spire of Dublin grows with the print: about 33 mm tall on the default 160 mm print. For a model larger than your printer bed, Project Mode splits the area into tiles.
Is it free?
Yes. Generation runs in your browser, with no account and nothing behind a paywall.
