Reply To: Information on the UCD Arts Block

Even having a walk around the belfield campus you can see the tricks- the lack of one major meeting place for demonstrations, the odd spacing of the steps around campus (prevents marches) the drive in restaurant (its been said that you could drive an armoured car up or down its staircases, or through the glass wall at the back) there is access tunnels around the arts block linking it to the admin block but they are not the sort of batman type of tunnels people expect, more along the lines of service ducts. Even the covered walkway running along the main axis of the site can be used as an escape route by running along the top.

None of these principals were applied to buildings built later on as Irish students are more interested in getting pissed than putting the world to rights. The Arts and Admin block happened to be designed around the time of the Student revolts in Paris and the UCD hierarchy were worried about this.