Reply To: Interesting article.

It was indeed a good article, asking many relevant questions of us and what we are doing to Ireland and Dublin.

It is indeed a pity that now, as there was in the early days of this state, that there exists little or no official interest in architecture from the government. In the 1930s, Government Ministers regularly attended AAI lectures, and architecture was used to put forward an image of the state. Look at the contrasting buildings of the Department of Commerce, Kildare St and Stormount Castle in Belfast to see how two governments of states of similar age but with different attitudes and aims portrayed their ambitions through architecture. Stormount is a massive and heavy example of an old architecture while Kildare Street although still rooted in the past has a more streamlined and modernistic feel.

But now, there is no such representation of the state through its architecture, or a realisation in the government ranks that Ireland can be presented as well through good modern architecture as any amount of Riverdance / Bord Failte / Celtic Tiger self-promotion.