Posts in the ‘Architecture’ Category

AAI President’s Speech at the 2011 AAI Awards at darcspace

Thank you all for coming this evening despite the weather and the distinct lack of CPD points on offer for this particular AAI event.  In the current culture of abrasive architectural acronyms (CPDs, PPQs, PPP's, PSDP's)  it is worth reminding ourselves of the origins of language and architecture. In his Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius relates one such story.

A spontaneous forest fire started by nature itself, at first insights fear in those that see it. Through regular fuelling of this fire the peoples come to a shared understanding of its value as a source of warmth for the community and a means of surviving the harsh winters. 

Vitruvius suggests that in giving this social event a name that language and architecture developed in civilization.

The Architectural Association of Ireland continues this tradition since its foundation in 1896 as a medium of friendly communication. It is through our own social events, the whispers at the back of the lecture theatre, the debates that follow, the questions during site visits, the submissions to our journal Building Material or the presenting of one's work in a forum such as this that the language of architecture can develop. I call on all present to continue your engagement in these social events as the very best means of supporting the AAI.

I would like to thank all our Members, Patrons, Friends, Sponsors and the Arts Council for their financial support. I would also like to especially thank darcspace and all those on the committee who helped with the awards and this exhibition: Kate Gannon (Events Officer), Conor McGowan (Secretary), Fergus Naughton (Site Visits Officer) and Dave Cuddy. Particular thanks are due to Colm Dunbar, the AAI's membership officer who has worked tirelessly to organise both tonight and the move of this exhibition in two weeks time to the Print Room of the National Gallery on Merrion Square. Please make Colm feel extra appreciated by renewing your membership on you way out. I would also like to thank the jurors for 2010 and those on the AAI's awards panel last year: Paddy Cahill, Miriam Delaney and Hugo Lamont. Hugo, now ex-officio on the committee, has been of great assistance throughout these first few months of my presidency and I would like to take this opportunity to make special mention for the incredible amount of work he put in as President in 2010, our own annus horribilis. Since last year the AAI has seen the departure of our administrator, our ongoing restructuring and a significant cut of over half of our funding. Despite this the AAI has (with the help of Culture Ireland and under the generous curatorship of Shane O'Toole) sent a significant exhibition of 10 years of AAI Awards to Europe, inaugurated the first AAI 'Sale of Work' during Open House week and hosted or co-hosted over 30 events across the island of Ireland with over 50 architects continuing this tradition of naming the fire. Therefore the valuable advice given to us by previous AAI Presidents and previous committee members and the ongoing efforts of the current committee and volunteers throughout the year must also be mentioned, in particular Darius Cyparski, Alice Clancey, Ronan McCann, Antoin Doyle, Ellen Rowley, Joa van Wyck, Stephen Mulhall and each of our student reps in the universities across the island. 

I now call on our distinguished guest, Minister Ruairi Quinn to formally open this exhibition and present the awards for 2011.

Thank you

Douglas Carson AAI President 2011

An open letter to the RIAI Council and Members from the AAI Committee, May 2011

To whom it may concern,

The Committee of the Architectural Association of Ireland is deeply concerned over the current level of recognition and reward given to those that make architecture happen.

The AAI, which since 1896 has existed as a forum for those interested in the culture of architecture, sees some of our members who work within the profession exploited through low or no pay. This unacceptable behaviour carried out by employers appears concurrent with a trend in architects' own acceptance of unsustainably low professional fees and the proliferation of 'free-consultations'. Through this exploitation and the 'race to the bottom' in terms of fees the profession is complicit in nurturing a society where architecture is undervalued.

Justification from some within the profession is that one must work without pay to gain experience. We disagree. If one's work has a value, either as investment in a practice through competitions and research, or in the conventional production of design documents for paying clients, one should be fairly paid. If not, the message given to society at large is that the work required to make architecture happen has little or no value.

While it is not in society's interests that the practice of architecture in Ireland becomes exclusive to those from particular social strata, it would seem that due to the current tendency towards unpaid internships, only those with sufficient financial support have the opportunity to gain the experience required to progress. Those from lower-income backgrounds with understandable pressure to earn a wage following what is an already lengthy education, are excluded outright. Furthermore, young emerging practices cannot compete with those practices backed by years of very healthy yields, who are
now offering a degree of free work or work 'at a loss'.

Thankfully one member of the RIAI, Dublin-born architect Angela Brady and President-Elect of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), is contesting this sub-culture and is standing up for better values in architecture. The current RIBA President, Ruth Reed is already overseeing the enforcement of statutory minimum pay for all working students from this July and President-Elect Brady has vowed to continue this work through a zero-tolerance approach to practices that break these rules.

The AAI committee would welcome such development within the Irish profession. As such, we will be asking our members to sign a declaration on fair pay on their next submission to the annual AAI Awards. We call on the RIAI to join us in this stance for better values by ratifying and implementing the following:

• Following immediate consultation with all stakeholders, to establish rules on minimum pay and hold to account those practitioners who ignore these rules
• To make mandatory a signed declaration, for all competition and award submissions, that all employees used in the production of those submissions have been paid according to these rules
• To actively publicise Architectural Graduate Member status to all students and reduce the prohibitive cost of graduate membership
• Compile a complete register of all architectural graduates with the view to formalising all paid experience prior to professional examinations.

In summary, the value of architecture in our society and the values within the profession are under threat. It is from all those values combined that a built legacy will emerge. Hopefully, that legacy will be considered as a great gift given to the generations to come rather than a burden to be borne by them.

The architectural profession has a key responsibility in that story. We look forward to discussing how these proposals might be implemented at the next RIAI council meeting.

Kind regards,

The AAI Committee
President: Douglas Carson
Site Visits Officer: Fergus Naughton
Hon. Treasurer: Joa Van Wyk
Ex-Officio: Hugo Lamont
Cultural Liaison Officer: Ellen Rowley
Honorary Secretary: Conor McGowan
2nd Year Competition Officer: Alice Clancy
Programme Officer: Kate Gannon
Membership Officer: Colm Dunbar
Website Officer: Dariusz Cyparski
Building Material Editor: Stephen Mulhall
Awards & Exhibition Officer: Paddy Cahill

Click to download this document in PDF format. 

Zumthor’s Trousers - a critical guide

The following article by Hugh Campbell appeared in Building Material 12: Morality and Architecture.

What’s the problem with Peter Zumthor? He is, after all, one of the most widely revered architects of the last decade: creator of seminal works at Chur, at Vals, at Bregenz, renowned teacher, source of a thousand student projects, deployer of delicious details, transcender of fashion and taste, champion of architecture’s enduring value. Everything about Zumthor exudes an unassailable rectitude. And yet despite all this, and despite the undoubted accomplishment and beauty of the architecture, there remains, for me, something fundamentally unsatisfactory about Zumthor’s work.

After a recent visit to the Kunsthaus at Bregenz, the reasons for this became a little clearer. On a side excursion from a college trip, four of us arrive, slightly bleary-eyed, in Bregenz on a grey Sunday morning. When, replenished by black coffee in the black café, we finally enter the gallery building, a slowly unwinding joke is set in motion. We’re greeted by a scattering of acro-props spanning floor to ceiling. A moment of doubt (is Zumthor falling down?) is followed by a flicker of Schadenfreude (Zumthor has failed!) before it becomes clear that the current exhibition, by the Spanish artist Sebastiao Sierra, is called 300 TONNES, which presumably means there’s something very big and heavy upstairs that needs to be supported down here. Accordingly, as we mount from floor to floor, we find each space disrupted by a field of props. Glass panels from the suspended ceiling are removed and leant against the side walls to allow the props uninterrupted passage. The serenity of the spaces is rudely interrupted. The crude, roughly painted metal of the props jars with the exquisite perfection of the spaces’ finishes - the jointless terrazzo floor, the chromed doorframes. And after this long set-up, on the top floor, the punchline. We emerge from the stairs to find that the whole space is occupied by large stacks of concrete blocks, sitting on plastic sheeting. Builders’ debris is scattered across the floor. In one corner, a table is laden with hardhats, tabloids and teacups. The effect is uncanny – a builders’ yard stacked with the base materials of construction is secreted within a lovingly crafted casket. The raw meets the cooked.

While most of the impressive roster of artists who have inhabited the Kunsthaus - from James Turrell to Olafur Eliasson – have seemed content to work with its serenely precious atmosphere, Sierra’s witty installation is determined to challenge the architecture’s self-importance. 300 tonnes - the combined weight of the blocks and a maximum 100 visitors (there’s a counter at the entrance, keeping tally) – is apparently the safe limit of the building’s structure, but what Sierra is really testing are the limits of Zumthor’s architectural thinking.

For Zumthor, architecture is fundamentally concerned with making: ‘Construction is the art of making a meaningful whole out of many parts. Buildings are witnesses to the human ability to construct concrete things. I believe that the real core of all architectural work lies in the act of construction.’i Hence, his buildings are presented as constructs – as elements and components joined together carefully and systematically. The ‘feathered’ glass skin of the Kunsthaus is an obvious example: it reveals its own construction; the constituent parts are evident in the finished product. There is an interest in tectonic truth-telling here which can be traced back through Kahn and Mies to Perret and Viollet-le-Duc. And for Zumthor, as for many of these figures, construction, truth and morality are fundamentally linked. The attention paid to construction and, maybe more importantly, to the presentation of construction allows architecture to become coherent and comprehensible. This comprehensibility in turn begins to acquire - in Zumthor’s view – an ontological status. The constructed object – the made thing – stands as a quiet sentinel of truth in a world devoid of ‘the real’. Here’s a passage that typifies this thinking:

‘Arbitrariness prevails.
Post-modern life could be described as a state in which everything beyond our own personal biography seems vague, blurred and somehow unreal. The world is full of signs and information which stand for things which no-one fully understands because they, too, turn out to be mere signs for other things. The real thing remains hidden. No-one ever gets to see it.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that real things do exist, however endangered they may be. There are earth and water, the light of the sun, landscapes and vegetation; and there are objects, made by man, such as machines, tools or musical instruments which are what they are, which are not mere vehicles for an artistic message, whosepresence is self-evident.
When we look at objects or buildings which seem to be at peace within themselves, our perception becomes calm and dulled. The objects we perceive have no message for us, they are simply there. Our perceptive faculties grow quiet, unprejudiced and unacquisitive. They reach beyond signs and symbols, they are open, empty. Here, in this perceptual vacuum, a memory may surface, a memory which seems to issue from the depths of time. Now, our observation of the object embraces a presentiment of the world in all its whole ness, because there is nothing that cannot be understood.ii

Even as it drifts into mystical obfuscation, the argument here remains clear - clear to the point of banality. Contemporary life bad – confusing, you see. No truth anymore. If only things could just...eh... be what they are. Like in the old days, you know - way back. (Needless to say, the childhood memories of the aunt’s kitchen have already been wheeled out earlier in the essay.) All the usual characteristics of Zumthor’s writing are present: the preachy tone, the peremptory dismissal of contemporary society, the nostalgia for simple, ‘true’ things, the appeal to some prelapsarian state of grace (to be found, presumably, somewhere in ‘the depths of time’.) To the arbitrariness of ‘post-modern life’ is opposed the certainty of the ‘real’ object, the supposed value of the latter completely dependent on the supposed bankruptcy of the former. Well, if postmodernism revealed anything to us, it was precisely the inadequacy of thinking through such binary oppositions. If the achievement of true ‘meaning’ and understanding is made possible only through an outright rejection of the ‘mere signs’ of the contemporary world, then it seems a fairly hollow achievement. But this is exactly the premise embodied in Zumthor’s architecture: it sets itself in opposition to what, for him, are the unmanageable complexities of our contemporary existence. It turns its back on the world and in so doing, actually admits its own weakness. The unalloyed reverence for craft and construction now begins to seem suspiciously like a substitute for any real engagement with the world. Within the bounds of the building, a resplendent perfection reigns. Beyond its limits... well, there’s nothing to be done. There is a joke told in Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame about a man who goes to a tailor for a pair of trousers. After weeks of innumerable fittings, adjustments and refinements, the trousers are still not ready, and the man eventually explodes with exasperation: “‘God damn you to hell, Sir, no, its indecent, there are limits! In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. Yes Sir, no less Sir, the WORLD! And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!’ [Tailor’s voice, scandalised] ‘But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look – [disdainful gesture, disgustedly] – at the world – [pause] – and look – [loving gesture, proudly] – at my TROUSERS!’”iii

Of course, caring about tailoring doesn’t mean not caring about the world. Mies van der Rohe, for instance, who pursued purity and perfection in steel for thirty years, always did so out of a desire that his architecture might quietly reconstitute the relationship between people and the world. He quoted Schinkel on the subject: ‘A work of architecture must not stand as a finished and self-sufficient object. True and pure imagination, having once entered the stream of the idea that it expresses, has to expand forever beyond this work, and it must venture out, leading ultimately to the infinite. It must be regarded as the point at which one can make an orderly entry into the unbreakable chain of the universe.’ Architecture is required to open itself out, rather than closing itself off. It should be a point of entry, rather than a dead end.

In very obvious ways, the Kunsthaus at Bregenz epitomises the closed nature of Zumthor’s thinking. From the inside, the outside world is completely absent. There are no views out. Even the light has to be modulated and filtered before being allowed entry. From outside, the building seems an alien presence along the lakefront. It is in the world, but not of it. Its evanescent glass shroud is akin to the transparent mac worn by Gene Hackman in Francis Ford Copolla’s brilliant 1973 film The Conversation. Hackman played Harry Caul, a sound surveillance expert who preferred to experience the world at one remove, who avoided direct engagement at all costs. But if Caul comes across as reticent and withdrawn, he is also remarkably self- absorbed. In Zumthor, we find a similar solipsism. What is most problematic about his work is not really its narrow focus, and certainly not its interest in materials and construction, but rather his conviction of the absolute moral superiority of these concerns. His architecture claims for itself a position outside the relativism and the ‘arbitrariness’ of contemporary society. But in fact Zumthor’s position is just as arbitrary, just as ideologically loaded, just as much a cultural construct as any other. The potency of Sebastiao Sierra’s installation lies in the way it draws attention to this piece of misdirection. The raw power of those dense stacks of rough concrete blocks points up the extreme self-consciousness of the gallery’s construction. It’s the blocks which, to use Zumthor’s words, ‘are not mere vehicles for an artistic message, whose presence is self- evident’, while the building becomes a ‘mere sign for something else.’ This role reversal is then further complicated by the knowledge that the stacks of blocks themselves are, in fact, the vehicle for an artistic message. Suddenly nothing seems absolute or certain; nothing seems pure or simple. By upsetting the insistent equilibrium of Zumthor’s architecture, Sierra reveals the narrowness, and the precariousness, of its ideological foundations.

Dr. Hugh Campbell is Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture, University College Dublin.
Drawing by Catherine de Groot, 3rd Year, School of Architecture, University College Dublin.

References:
i Zumthor, P. - A Way of Looking at Things, Architecture and Urbanism, February 1998 extra edition, p. 8.
ii Ibid., p. 14.
iii Beckett S. - Endgame, in The Complete Dramatic Works, London: Faber and Faber, 1990, p. 103.

AAI Awards exhibition continues in the Light Cinema untill May 16th

The Awards exhibition opened last Friday the 23rd with an awards presentation, the winners are:

DOWNES BRONZE MEDAL

#60 TIMBERYARD SOCIAL HOUSING (Coombe Bypass, Dublin 8) — O’DONNELL + TUOMEY

 
AAI AWARDS
The maximum number of AAI Awards is seven. This year the jury selected 6 projects for Awards, including 2 for Special Awards. They are (in alphabetical order by architect):

SPECIAL AWARDS
 #16 THE ALZHEIMER'S RESPITE CENTRE (Blackrock, Co Dublin) — NIALL McLAUGHLIN ARCHITECTS

#59 AN GAELARAS (Derry) — O’DONNELL + TUOMEY

AWARDS

#6 NEW ORDER (Stoneybatter, Dublin 7) — Peter Carroll, Caomhán Murphy, A2 ARCHITECTS

 #95 LAKE HOUSE EXTENSION + RENOVATION (Co Kerry) — Andrew Clancy, Colm Moore, CLANCY MOORE

 #109 HOUSE – GARDEN – GRAFT (Ranelagh, Dublin 6) — DONAGHY + DIMOND

 #20 HOUSE 1 + HOUSE 2 (Morehampton Road, Dublin 4) — TAKA

SPECIAL MENTIONS

This year the jury selected 14 projects for Special Mention. They are (in alphabetical order by architect):

#67 THE PLASTIC HOUSE (Dublin 3)
— Maxime Laroussi, Jean Baptiste Astruc, ARCHITECTURE REPUBLIC

#69 Y = 3 HOUSES (North Circular Road, Dublin 1)
— Maxime Laroussi, Javier Buren, ARCHITECTURE REPUBLIC

#8 SLATE STOREY EXTENSION (Chapelizod, Dublin 20)
— Tom Maher, ARCHITECTSTM

#48 EXTENSION TO A PROTECTED STRUCTURE (Rathgar, Dublin 6)
— Garbhan Doran, GARBHAN DORAN

#105 SLIABH BAN HOUSING, Galway
— DTA

#40 COMMON GROUND: Urban Landscape in Kilkenny
— Grace Keeley, Michael Pike, GKMP

#52 LANDSCAPE ROOM, Glencar, Sligo
— LID ARCHITECTURE

#52 PLUG-IN PATH AT WOODVALE PARK (Shankill, Belfast)
— LID ARCHITECTURE with Building Initiative

#87 SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING (Athlone Institute of Technology)
— McCULLOUGH MULVIN

#33 ARCHITECTS OFFICE (Letterkenny, Co Donegal)
— MAC GABHANN ARCHITECTS

#110 FATHER COLLINS PARK (Donaghmede, Dublin 13)
— MCO PROJECTS / ARARQ IRELAND

#35 3 MEWS DWELLINGS, Portobello, Dublin 8
— David O'Shea, Darrell O'Donoghue, ODOS

#36 31 CARYSFORT ROAD (Dalkey, Co Dublin)
— David O'Shea, Darrell O'Donoghue, ODOS

#62 DARTMOUTH SQUARE (Dublin 6)
— Max O'Flaherty, AUGHEY O'FLAHERTY

Derelict Swimming Baths at Sandymount - Miriam Delaney

Sandymount Strand is a large tidal beach to the south west of Dublin city centre. Land here has been subject to much mutation over the centuries. The present coast-line is at least a mile from where the medieval high tide mark stood, and much of what constitutes the present Sandymount village is built on reclaimed land. Sandymount, originally known as Irishtown, was one of the pleasure grounds of Georgian Dublin, and baths have existed in this area since medieval times. Sandymount Baths form part of a chain of bathing places along Dublin Bay.

Image Credit- ‘Martello’ magazine article ‘‘Bathing Houses of Dublin Bay’ Summer 1988

The baths at Sandymount were constructed as a replacement of the older ‘Cranfield’ baths (the site of which is now about half a mile inland- close to the ‘Our Lady, Star of the Sea’ Catholic Church ). The Cranfield baths were enormously popular as they contained both cold and hot water baths and had accommodation nearby for visitors. The ‘new’ baths at Sandymount (officially know as The Merrion Baths) were received with criticism form the outset. The traditional horse drawn bathing boxes on Sandymount strand were forcibly removed which caused local indignation.
‘The Pembroke Township Commissioners, ….resolved on the destruction of the private bathing boxes, and issued a decree for their removal. This very naturally created great indignation and remonstrance among the inhabitants’

Complaints were also made that the baths silted up frequently and the water became stagnant. The baths were unpopular with the expected visitor numbers never materializing.
‘the water within the basins becomes in a great measure stagnant and foul, and sediment which collects at the bottom can only be removed by artificial means and at considerable outlay. In other details, various defects both of plan and execution might be specified’

image credit: Private Archive; Brian Siggins

The baths were built of cast in situ concrete and originally were linked to the coast road by an iron and timber pier (approximately 75m long), which housed a bandstand and changing rooms. Photos of the baths and pier in operation are few, no references to the Sandymount Baths (or Merrion Baths) are to be found at the Architectural Archives and they feature in only one photo in the National Photographic Archive. The photos shown here come from the personal archive of local historian Brian Siggins.

image credit: Private Archive; Brian Siggins

The baths were constructed in 1883, and were split into male and female swimming areas. In total the baths measured 40m by 40m, and were fed with sea water via a pumping system which stretched out to the open sea, the bath water was emptied daily and refilled with fresh sea-water. The baths were closed in 1923 and the pier and all the timber structures demolished, all that remains now is the concrete sub- structure.

image credit: Private Archive; Brian Siggins

The fortunes of the Victorian baths (most constructed in the19th century) were linked to the rise of the railway. Baths such as those at Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire gained rapidly in popularity with the advent of the Kingstown railway line constructed in 1837, which allowed Dubliners easy access to clean water and fresh air. These suburban swimming baths remained in use much longer than those close to the city- the Dun Laoghaire and Blackrock baths were only closed in the 1980s.

Title ‘Blackrock Baths Circa 1900’ 

‘Blackrock Baths’ Image Credit- http://www.wikipedia .org 

 ‘Dun Laoighre Baths’

The baths closer the city centre, such as those at Sandymount and Clontarf suffered, firstly from the pollution caused by industry at the quays and secondly from frequent silting up. The Sandymount baths closed in 1923 (figures 3, 4 & 5 show the baths in operation). Remarkably little evidence- archival, physical or oral- remains of the baths. The concrete is currently in a poor state, the walls are badly eroded at and heavily graffitied. The perimeter walls are breached facing the sea. There have been a number of half- hearted campaigns to restore the baths or construct a new promenade or pier, at present Dublin City Council present no proposals for the future of the baths.

 ‘corroded concrete’ 

 ‘Swimming Bath walls breached’

 ‘view from inside the Baths ‘

Blog post by Miriam Delaney


 

Bull Island Timber Bridge

This bridge dates from 1907 and connects Bull Island with the mainland. It has replaced two other previous structures, the earliest being built in 1819, its original purpose being to facilitate the construction of the North Bull Wall. The wall itself was constructed to prevent Dublin harbour from silting up. The wall helps maintain an adequate depth clearance for ships to pass through the harbour by creating a barrier for the silt deposits; these deposits built up over time to form the Bull Island as we know it today.

Due to is age (over 100 years) and constant exposure to a harsh maritime climate as well as over half of the structure being submerged in saltwater daily, a company called Carnehill Building Services carried out essential restoration work to the bridge in 2008.

In Ireland it is common practice to use timbers such as Oak, Iroko, Larch, Douglas fir and Cedar for external building purposes; when properly treated these timbers present an adequate resistance to moisture and are used for cladding and general joinery projects. However, when the design for the Bull Wall bridge was being conceived is was clear that timbers with an exceptionally high water resistance would be required due to the fact that the proposed structure would be partly submerged underwater.

From a distance it is possible to assume that the bridge is constructed in one type of timber, when in fact three types are being used, each with its own specific purpose:

Greenheart:

A ‘Greenheart’ column and beam assembly forms the superstructure of the bridge. These columns and beams are 230x230mm in section and are set out in rows of four on a grid along the length of the causeway. Greenheart timber (exported from Guyana) has exceptional density and strength. Its heartwood is highly resistant to attack by fungi, marine borers and dry-wood termites, making it a marine and shipbuilders' favorite.

Ekki:

The superstructure supports crossrails made from ‘Ekki’, which are 230 x 75mm in section and are set out at 300mm centres. Ekki, a West African hardwood, is classified as "exceptionally heavy" and is considered to be one of the most durable of all African woods.

It is noted more for its impressive strength and difficulty in working than its appearance. These characteristics have resulted in a long list of practical rather than decorative uses. Ekki is a perfect material for heavy construction or other uses where great strength and durability is needed. Typical applications include wharfs, bridges, sea fences and river pilings because of the wood's strength and resistance to decay.

The bridge supports both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The carriageway deck is 3100mm wide and is constructed of Ekki due to its hardwearing and durable nature.

Douglas Fir:

Douglas Fir is the only timber used on the bridge which grows in Ireland. Both the pathway (bridge consists of two paths either side of the carriageway) and handrail are constructed in Douglas Fir. Each pathway is 1400mm wide and is built from 200 x 50mm Douglas Fir planks. Douglas-fir, classified as a softwood can be used for external applications as long as its heartwood (as opposed to sapwood) is used. It is used extensively in the construction industry.

The above image shows how decayed sections of the greenheart superstructure had to be replaced with new lengths spliced into the structure as shown.

While only certain sections of the greenheart structure had to be replaced the ekki crossrails were extensively decayed and had to be replaced accordingly.

The above image shows the extensive number of new crossrails with the douglas fir planks for the footpath being laid out.

The above image shows the new ekki carraigeway with the douglas fir timber for the footpath beside.

The bridge begins with a Junction between the new ekki carraigeway and the existing granite kerbing.

Views of the newly restored bridge.
 

Curators for Venice Architecture Biennale 2010 Announced

Culture Ireland, in partnership with the Arts Council, is pleased to announce the appointment of the curators who will represent Ireland at the Architecture Biennale in Venice. The curators will work closely with the Irish Architecture Foundation, Commissioners for the 2010 Architecture Biennale, which will open in August 2010. Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council. 

The curating team, selected following an open competitive process, is a collaboration between Tom dePaor, Peter Maybury, Alice Casey and Cian Deegan, who will deliver an exhibition about renowned Irish practice, deBlacam and Meagher. This exhibition will seek to develop an understanding of the cultural landscape of Ireland through the work of deBlacam and Meagher Architects. Over 33 years this Irish architectural practice has built houses and places of work, commerce, education and worship. In turn, the influence of deBlacam and Meagher’s practice has permeated the many facets of Irish life with a distinct cultural presence. Through a number of individual contributions by Irish and international critical voices, the contemporary relevance of this body of work will be explored and revealed.