Re: Re: RIAI Gold Medal 2001-2003

@gunter wrote:

the RIAI should be recognising this and not handing out more awards to quirky one-offs in suburban locations (the ‘Urban Institute’ is leafy Clonskeagh for god sake!) that contribute little or nothing to the main challenge facing Irish architecture :- finding the means to lead Irish society towards a sustainable urban future!

Whilst I agree that that should be the main purpose of architecture (and awards ceremonies), awards ceremonies (and Irish architecture) seem to prize the building as object above all other considerations. See the comments of ‘what?’ above (who, with ‘shadow’, I often – reductively, and perhaps a little unfairly – think of as representing Architecture [big A] on this board).

Also, the seductiveness of The New is hardly unique to architecture- all Government departments, for example, prioritise capital investment over maintenance. You get much better press for opening a new bypass than for maintaining/mending existing roads, etc. etc.

As for your U.I quip- you do know that the name has nothing to do with the location and everything to do with the function (which – oh the irony! – is, partly at least, ‘finding the means to lead Irish society towards a sustainable urban future’)?

(Apologies for putting the ‘names’ in inverted commas, but the sense of the sentence got buried otherwise.)