Ireland at Venice 2010

[trace]

Well, has anybody who has been to Venice last week got anything at all to say about the Irish pavillion this year? Good, bad, indifferent?http://twitter.com/cast_architect says that it is "one of the best Biennale in years" but that's all. Nothing about deb&m (or Tom dePaor).

BD's Oliver Wainwright put us in this context. Is he right or no? "As far as exhibition design goes, this year sees lots of pavilions using the rather lazy format of ‘make it yourself’ books, reams of lavishly printed sheets of information and photos stacked hot-off-the-press on palettes. Israel, Ireand, Croatia and OMA all tried this trick, but might have been more successful if they had gone to the trouble of mounting a decent exhibition and making an accompanying catalogue – visitors rarely bothered to spend the requisite half hour religiously collecting a mountain of unruly A1 sheets in the right order and folding / rolling / stuffing them into one of their amassed collection of lurid tote bags."

[missarchi]

post some photos...

(please)

Without seeing it I was of the impression it was retrospective.
If that helps them plot the future and proper tourism I'm all for it.

[onq]

Not a lot online

http://www.labiennale.org/en/biennale/index.html

http://www.labiennale.org/en/biennale/photocenter/index.html?PAGEN=0&BACK=0

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0723/1224275279163.html

http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/media.aspx?article=9f3a96c7-1017-45a5-9f07-c6b84cf243e5

ONQ

[Paul Clerkin]

The website for the Irish pavilion has the ‘make it yourself’ vibe going too - absolutely embarrassing in my professional opinion (for that is what I do).

[wearnicehats]

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/venice/venice_biennale_irish_pavilion.htm

it does look like the courier just dumped it off. Not very "green" either - all that paper

[stevenhiggins]

I was at the Dublin Launch and they said all the paper and ink was totally recycled.

besides that green stuff the photos look really atmospheric in that space.

[onq]

While I have no problem with the subject matter - DBM's purist modernism will do fine thank you very much - the exhibition has neither shape nor make to it.
Imagine all the health and safety issues from holidaying postmen having to pick up their multiple compilations as the stacks reduce in height.

If it's going to be a compose-your-own perhaps we should have included in exhibit the work of some Irish self-builders.
Even in the Tiger years they accounted for 35-40% of new build houses - an astonishing figure.

Ummm - not sure how many used RIAI approved architects though...
<coughs> ... possibly part of the problem, not the solution...

ONQ.

[wearnicehats]

I was at the Dublin Launch and they said all the paper and ink was totally recycled.

besides that green stuff the photos look really atmospheric in that space.

recycling paper requires energy. To do it needlessly is still a waste.

I'm not convinced that dumping a pallette of cvs in a room formally occupied by an irish monk does or says much for or about Ireland, or DBM for that matter

[onq]

I'm concerned that it seems to amount to a poorly presented retrospective of a good firm.

Another concern is that it fails to showcase any new Irish talent - the AAI awards were better.

ONQ.

[missarchi]

caption:

"In the future we will project circles onto plans and that will set-out the unsolicited Renaissance"

[missarchi]

I guess you could get them framed?

once upon a time architects relied on princes and popes...

[maggie]

Any images or reviews of the Tom de Paor installation? I can't find anything on any of the reviews.

[wearnicehats]

Any images or reviews of the Tom de Paor installation? I can't find anything on any of the reviews.

Given that Tommy Power was to build "a folly of pleated linen and lavendered softwood", called “4am”, in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in the Giardini of Venice - to "explore liminal domestic space" - which, apparently would somehow "help people relate to architecture, help architecture relate to people and help people relate to themselves” , maybe no-one knew what was happening

there's an interview done at VB2010 here - it's not relevant to VB2010 but a of some interest if you can get past the first 3 rather painful minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it-zypsOjLs

[onq]

Okay, I confess, half the time I understand only some of your posts.

That time I understood so little of it I actually had to look that up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality

This could be where I am, Gradaute, not yet Registered.

I may be in a liminal state about to undergo a rite of passage.

Or yer maun could like stalking from behind the curtains in a room.

ONQ.

[trace]

What a shit interview. At 6min in he almost got going, then at 7.30, something apparently important turns into another ramble. Talk about being overawed by the interviewer! Say what you mean, man! You're there. You were picked by Sejma! ... Sadly, too late now.

[Paul Clerkin]

Oh my god that interview - beautifully lit and done - Is it a case of painful silences and slow thought processes make the interview seem deeper and more meaningful or am I allowed question TdeP

[missarchi]

Oh my god that interview - beautifully lit and done - Is it a case of painful silences and slow thought processes make the interview seem deeper and more meaningful or am I allowed question TdeP

depends what time it is on the watchtowers!
the school of shinohara... or gins the night before? bombay?

He did hint about irish translation but he didn't seem interested in it too much..
He could of stuck his neck out but he didn't. um ohh

[shadow]

caption:

"In the future we will project circles onto plans and that will set-out the unsolicited Renaissance"

what.........

I would love someone to explain this one.

Are circles not already 2 dimensional and therefore not in need of projection. As for setting out, does this mean that the circles are construction lines, or guidelines (for building one might assume). The unsolicitied (un invited?) does this mean it is coming anyway and if so do we need to set out the circles. So does this deny any hope for architects, condemed to futile acts of drawing that will have no influence whatsoever....... Maybe is cleverly cloaked satire...

[onq]

Maybe its a comment on how few architects use the primary building form - the arch - these days.

Curves are used for dramatic effect in free form buildings like Gehry's, but then, if you look at the structural sections, you see its all set design, held up by outrageous substructures.

The rectangle, square, shard, beam - all get a look it, but it seems its not hard core if there is a soft line lying around that isn't used to make the building look like and oversized kitchen appliance inserted unlovingly into the urban form.

Libeskind goes so far from the classical design ethos as to have tried to use an assymetrical interior for his recent Grand Canal theatre, until the clients reminded him that this was what the acoustics and performers required, or so I've been told.

The rebellion against vernacular design is won and we're all talking of Babel, each an island denying its context and seeking common cause internationally and not locally, a denial of culture to rival anything achieved by the Masters of the world in two world wars.

Soon culture will mean nothing to any of us in terms of blood and bone and place - it'll be a pastiche of meanings selected by choice from a book on a coffee table.

ONQ.

[onq]

I finally looked at that interview.
Never has a man looked so uncomfortable saying so much in so few words - a lot going on in his head.
He touched on so many things in very few words that its hard not to feel frustrated only seeing 9 minutes and 20 seconds of his life.
His interst in "hand-made" infrastructure, field patterns tower houses, hay barns, Houses of the Middle Size, his simple and self-effacing descriptions of his own work, the closure of the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LhxWbwOpZo

One of the longest sentences or paragraphs showed hsi interest in his own area growing up.
"The quality of those things is not about high order - its more about the compromise - how the typology is adjusted into a situation and I suppose the compromise of its construction as well - that's a big source of interest..."
And on the infrastructe project of the motorway he was involved in he spoke of a "dew of things" - lovely expression, but tempered it with what seemed to be a sad realisation of how little even the greatest of designers can bring to the table in terms of what actually gets done.

"Again that project was never completed - its only partial, as all these grande plans seem to end."

Any more from Tom de Paor?

ONQ.

[Tayto]

This is the thread of the Tortured Artists, with associated tortured sentences and words, representing the struggle to articulate the depth and meaning of ideas.
Note also the prevalence of meaningful "..." (dot-dot-dots) in the middle and at the end of sentences.

Strangely similar, sonically, to the experience of having a particularly heavy dump.

[onq]

The philosophical implications of dumping are not to be underestimated.

Whether on the macro-scale of landfill, leaving by implication a literally negative impression of the society so "cleansed".

Or the micro-scale of person ablution, where focussing too much on Zen discipline can see the person becoming "one with the dump" and metaphisically disappearing down the bowl in an endless communication with the selfless divine.

ONQ.

[Sorry, I forgot all the "..."'s, heavy pauses, and head-scratching - insert (scratch, looking into middle distance) as as you may feel appropriate...]

[onq]

We should rename this Pseud's Corner.

[gunter]

According to F McD you're not going to understand '4am' by T deP without reference to A D's take on melancholia - which unfortunately nobody understands - and that's before you factor-in that the unbleached linen should have been more diaphanous.

I hope that's transparent enough.

[missarchi]

I think the time 4am is more to do with the time difference for the record...
The circle the rising sun? or a center point its all getting to deep...

a not with a silent k...

Maybe its more to do with extruding circles if you project them you make it a target.
Rather than connect the dots it is connect the extruded circles and that will allow you to choose your target.

But remember you have 2 different directions and two circles do you have 4 targets/choices or 1?

Soon culture will mean nothing to any of us in terms of blood and bone and place - it'll be a pastiche of meanings selected by choice from a book on a coffee table.

sad but true or as they say "new"

I would like to see the linen...
Maybe some one has been hung out to dry...