Reply To: Great Modern Architecture!

I think a major problem with Irish Architechture – or the lack of a style thereof is, superficial as it may sound, the lack of any decorative element in the designs.

Honestly, think about it – I have seriously considered it lately and may bore you with an essay on it soon – most of the work in this country is cheap, boring and lacking in decoration/ornamentation.

One of Busarus’ plusses is it’s coloured tiles, bizarre sea-shell/lasagne roofing [also on Liberty hall]. That’s a good start as far as I can see it toward creating a ‘national style’.

I don’t think ornanmentation need necessarily be superficial, just ‘stuck-on’. It also springs from basic architechtural engineering needs. Look at the wild ornamentation on Gothic cathedrals. For one thing the flying butresses become ornamental in themselves and also smaller details on the butresses such as those secondary pyramid/cone/steeples atop them. They are there as weights to stop the butresses themselves from collapsing and exploding outward. What did the architects do? Put a great cube lump of stone there? Nowadays they would – instead it evolved into a beautiful component of the structure in itself.

On the other hand, look at some of the steel frame buildings in the states. In these cases, ornamentation WAS stuck on without any structural need but it did follow an aesthetic idea/style. Does the style of the Chrysler building look merely ‘superficial’?

Also consider, Gaudi, the Art Nouveau house on Rue Rapp in Paris, Venetian Byzantine-Gothic Palaces….

Surely we can create our own National architectural style can’t we?

Is it simply a matter of expense and time constraints rather than lack of imagination and laziness? In a way, I hope so.

john – rambling again.