This conspicuous commission proved to be the turning point in Gandon's career and Dublin was to become Gandon's home and its architecture his ""raison d'etre"" for the remainder of his life. He took a house in Mecklenburgh Street (now Railway Street), that he might be near the residence of John Beresford, the main proponent for the development of the city. The city, which in Gandon's lifetime was to grow to become the fifth largest city in Europe, was undergoing vast expansion, mostly following the Palladian and neoclassical designs already popularised in the city by Edward Lovett Pearce and Richard Cassels.