AAI Awards 2008

Nothing much to see there, the panel was disappointed with what passes for Architecture in Ireland and had t0 give their main award to some shed in the wastelands of Tallaght. Interesting that with what is coming down the tracks in terms of recession, energy/food shocks and carbon tax, architects can’t take the time to look over their 21″ flat screens and see the freight train heading our way. Do Architects know how to calculate the 0.60 Energy performance coefficient ,for dwellings submitted for planning after July? Do they know how to model the feasibility of alternative energy systems for commercial buildings, will they just farm this out these integral design tools to mechanical consultants? Are the committee’s set up in the RIAI actually doing anything to educate us, all new houses will be passive by 2011.
Awards? Look at the state of the built environment we have created in the last 15 years then tell me that the half a percentile of buildings which could be called Architecture represent a job well done. Why do all our wealthy peers build neoclassical macmansions, the backslapping that goes on at these love-in awards ceremonies, is like the band playing on on-board the titanic as she sank, its time to rearrange some deckchairs. The Institute president and past-president O’Laoire and Pike are doing a great job but we need to rfundamentally reappraise what we want architecture to be in the next couple of decades, Must we have the owners of the large commercial ‘architecture factories’ representing the ideals that sustained us through 5 tiring years of college and years of hard slog late night and weekends.
Have your say at the Irish Architecture Foundation’s tpublic consultation exercise, called Conversations about Architecture and the Built Environment. Public meetings are scheduled for Galway (May 29th), Waterford (June 3rd), Cork (June 4th), Limerick (June 5th), Carrick-on-Shannon (June 9th), Athlone (June 10th), Swords (June 11th) and Dublin (June 12th).

I visited this yesterday and was disappointed in the projects presented. The Downes Medal winner is worthy but perhaps not deserving of the medal. In fact I think the medal should not have been awarded at all. Many of the projects are the usual cubic extension to victorian / edwardian houses – so many in fact that they could hold their own exhibition “houseworx”.

Very disappointing – and not worth the trip down to Merrion Square in my opinion.

I saw the awards myself and think Paul’s comment-
“many of the projects are the usual cubic extension to victorian / edwardian houses – so many in fact that they could hold their own exhibition “houseworx”” is inaccurate.
All together there were 13 awards & special mentions and only 4 were domestic in scale. Amoung the rest of the projects were a school, civic offices, a community centre, a business park, a public paving scheme, an environment centre, a juice-bar, and a research centre. I think there was a good range of sizes, locations & programs, overall it seemed like an eclectic mix.

I have also been to the Awards exhibition and found it pretty interesting esp. the inclusion of the entries that didn’t make the cut, which ranged in quality from delusional to some that made the winners look second rate. But that’s all part of giving a set of judges critical freedom.

I agree with Maggie that Paul’s comment is dismissive of the exhibition and misleading, but then again this is also a platform for critical freedom.

Which leads me onto one of my pet hates which “keating” is propounding. The myopic idea that the evolution of architecture as an artistic development should be completely abandoned in order to comply with some Part L rating or BREAM check would be laughable were it not for the fact that so many people out there believe it.

Architecture is not compliance. Quite the opposite.

Pure freedom? I can’t agree. Parameters and constraints should be the very foundations of the creative process.

I’m pretty keen on this principle; so keen, in fact, that I keep a notebook for quotes on the subject. The title of the notebook? Liberty has meaning only in a context of restraint. It’s the last line of the Palladio chapter in James S Ackerman’s book on the villa.

I do agree, though, that simply ticking boxes for ‘compliance with the regs’ is a pretty bunk position.

Whether or not the exhibition is any good, this thread has reminded me to stick my head in for a look.

@what? wrote:

I have also been to the Awards exhibition and found it pretty interesting esp. the inclusion of the entries that didn’t make the cut, which ranged in quality from delusional to some that made the winners look second rate.

Any chance you might expand on that.

Constraints are there to be interrogated, encompassed or discarded.

I agree that working within a strict set of rules often leads to architecture of great integrity but you must question the rules in the first place.

On gunters question I can only note O Donnell + Tuomey’s house in Killiney as a beautiful and confident piece of architecture with sophistication far beyond anything else in the country. I couldn’t understand that it didn’t get a sniff when a bog standard industrial estate building with dangly bits on or a parody Zaha Hadid got awards.

@what? wrote:

I couldn’t understand that it (the O’Donnell & Tuomey house in Killiney) didn’t get a sniff when a bog standard industrial estate building with dangly bits on or a parody Zaha Hadid got awards.

I thought we weren’t going to be dismissive!

Most people concede (some grudgingly) that O’D & T are artists, it’s just a question of whether they’re relevant anymore. Indulgent clients, big budgets, that’s not the real world that the rest of us live in.

Since that concrete, semi-outdoor, house in Naven some years ago, it seems to me that O’D & T have deliberately pursued an artistic trajectory, when they were in a position to give genuine architectural and urban leadership.

I know this is just an argument and dedicated fans are not going to agree with me, but I believe that some of the reason that Irish architecture appears to be in a bit of a muddled and directionless state at the moment is because the likes of O’D & T haven’t been mixing it at the coal face very much.

With their Coombe by-pass residential scheme (refered to on a couple of recent threads), it will be interesting to see if they have something new to say on these issues.

The myopic idea that the evolution of architecture as an artistic development should be completely abandoned in order to comply with some Part L rating or BREAM check would be laughable were it not for the fact that so many people out there believe it.

I once worked as a chef, I produced art but it that art had to be edible, is it too much too ask that the art should be comfortable. If i’m to live in a piece of art, should I pay a huge price for energy for that privilege. Ivory towers may be zero energy Mr What but some of us must live in the real world. You’re laughable Mr What.

@gunter wrote:

I know this is just an argument and dedicated fans are not going to agree with me, but I believe that some of the reason that Irish architecture appears to be in a bit of a muddled and directionless state at the moment is because the likes of O’D & T haven’t been mixing it at the coal face very much.

+1

(to do a hutton on it :D) … would be a fan but your fairly on the mark gunter.

Social housing in an edge of rural development condition in Limerick, A new national school for one of the most deprived communities in Dublin and an inner-city Social housing scheme of over one hundred units under construction.

Name one other critically-minded architectural practice in Ireland who are tackling these types of schemes?

And don’t make me laugh with Murray O Laoire.

Keating it is a pleasure to be considered laughable by you.

@what? wrote:

On gunters question I can only note O Donnell + Tuomey’s house in Killiney as a beautiful and confident piece of architecture with sophistication far beyond anything else in the country. I couldn’t understand that it didn’t get a sniff when a bog standard industrial estate building with dangly bits on or a parody Zaha Hadid got awards.

as oppossed to ODT getting the award for an industrial estate building in a bog ! (Letterfrack) Artists they are now is it, funny stuff …archiseek.com putting the com back in comedy. MARY quick tell the kids we have artists designing the roofs over our heads . off the housing wating list and into the annals of MOMA we are.
So who will Irish architects follow now, I sense they are headless at the moment lacking direction and dont know which turn or movement to follow. Maybe they should return to the roots or their own Irish movement (???) (Note to self… oppurtunity for a comment here about bungalows with a nice spanish hacienda feel to them but must refrain from kicking a wounded dog)

How long is that exhibition running?

I am contradicting myself a bit here but I do find Sheila O’Donnell’s concepts in water colour a bit over indulgent and removed from the real world but I am always blown away by the finished article.

Keating, comfortable and cutting edge are very much attainable with products on the market now

Just checked the AAI website- it’s on until May 30th- next Friday

@what? wrote:

Name one other critically-minded architectural practice in Ireland who are tackling these types of schemes?

I can’t really think of one. That’s pretty much the point I was getting at, only I was using O’D&T as an example of this absence, in the Dublin context. The projects you mention are probably worthy and some may prove relevant, but Dublin has been redeveloped at break neck pace in the last fifteen years, and apart from one article in the paper by Paul Keogh, (posted on one of the recent threads) there hasn’t been anyone shouting ‘stop! this isn’t what we showed you’.

O’D&T (and the rest of that group) made their name with the ‘Making a Modern Street’ manifesto, followed by their win in the Temple Bar Framework Plan competition. Back then, there seemed to be a huge appetite for rediscovering the city and imagining it renewed and reinvigorated. It just seems to me that that energy isn’t there anymore. Back then, the AAI would come out every year and it would be provocative and even inspirational at times.

This isn’t a fully worked out theory, but I think that the real value of the whole post modern thing was that it provoked the more gifted architects into getting out of cruise control and actually re-examining what they believed in why they believed in it. They knew that the cardboard superficiality of Graves was an architectural cul-de-sac, but they knew also that the urban environment was being short changed by just continuing the modern movement as if nothing was wrong.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh, but once Group 91, and their circle, achieved that level of success, it just seemed that they left the field and HKR and the like moved in with a commercial brand of Modern Movement with stone, and that’s your lot! attitude. If you look at any high profile recent development in Dublin, you’ll find bits of abstracted Le Corbusier composition, or a bit of a Rietveld colour scheme, or a Mendelsohn curved glass corner, or whatever, added into the mix, but randomly, like pages torn from a book. We’re quarrying the modern movement for bits of imagery in the same way that, in the dark ages, they quarried Roman ruins for bits of ornament.

Contemporary Irish architecture is a ‘pick and mix’ and, in my opinion, there’s not much integrity in the mix!

This is not all O’D&Ts fault, that would be stupidly simplistic, but it’s somebody’s fault and I don’t get the feeling that the people who know better are all that bothered about it.

“This is not all O’D&T’s fault”

Are you insinuating that rather than the sinfully greedy developer-whore mega practices like HKR and Henry J Lyons who have taken Anthony Reddy’s batton of firing out anything the developer wants in a guise of an “architect-designed” project to increase the developer’s profit margin, the poor state of the built environment in Dublin is the fault of one of the only practices in the country that has remained resolute in mind and criticial in practice?

Boston or Berlin has once again enriched the debate with pointless sarcasm

Yes the latter phenomenon is one in recent years that has really raised its head across the city, and indeed nationally. Whereas by the late 90s/early 2000s developers were finally being turned down on schemes they’d got their kids to draw up on the kitchen table as a Sunday afternoon fun and games project, the allure of the architect in more recent times has partially enabled schemes to get through due to their offical ‘stamp of approval’ – one particularly horrific exmaple of which is currently nearing completion in all its back-slapping, derivative, tokenistic plum-bricked glory (as recently pictured by gunter and of which more anon) on one of the most challenging and prestigious sites in the city.

@what? wrote:

“This is not all O’D&T’s fault”

Are you insinuating that rather than the sinfully greedy developer-whore mega practices like HKR and Henry J Lyons who have taken Anthony Reddy’s batton of firing out anything the developer wants in a guise of an “architect-designed” project to increase the developer’s profit margin, the poor state of the built environment in Dublin is the fault of one of the only practices in the country that has remained resolute in mind and criticial in practice?

Boston or Berlin has once again enriched the debate with pointless sarcasm

If ODT are so hot how come international clients are’nt beating a path to their wood cladding door … you seem to think they have set the Irish architecture world alight , Im curious why no one on the continent of europe seems to think the same as you and actually awarded them a major build. (although I do hear the place is riddled with pointless sarcasm ) dont they appreciate “artists” outside of the Emerald Isle
…at least the firms you sarcasticaly address are honest enought to admit its about the money , and dont dress up poorly designed buildings in inane terms like resolute of mind critical in practice.

I wish there was a way to automatically block the posts of certain users – I’m really quite tired of the drivel being spouted by Boston or Berlin. I know I should just ignore but I’m drawn like a moth to a flame anyway and invariably end up infuriated by the patronizing, negative and ill informed nature of his/her posts.

As for the discussion at hand, Irish practices are beginning to make headway in an international context – O’Donnell & Tuomey are building the Photographer’s gallery in London, a prestigious and significant project which will undoubtedly open doors to further commisions. Another of Irelands “artistic” practices – Grafton, are just completing a hugely impressive university building in Milan. it isn’t much but it’s a beginning.

There is enormous talent in architecture at work in Ireland at the present time, it’s unfortunate that, for example, Boyd Cody have not had the breakthrough into larger projects that they clearly deserve – their competition winning Monaghan Civic Offices scheme seeming to have been shelved indefinitely. It’s an unfortunate feature of the Irish architectural scene that we now have these behemoths of practices, obviously driven solely by profit with their offices in Bratislava and Talinn, hoovering up any significant commercial work and churning out identikit schemes with neither rigour or quality beyond being constructed as quickly and as cheaply as possible (aside from the tack on “bling” depending on how “prestigious” the end product). It’s frustrating, but I suppose it’s the way it is and always has been…

On the subject of the awards themselves – nothing much to argue with aside from the insanity of presenting the silver sheds on the outskirts of Galway with an award. The Briarhill area is a disaster zone architecturally and whilst the particular buildings in question display a little more refinement than the usual business park asthetic (oh and of course they have cantilevered bits sticking out – exciting eh?) they are still faceless boxes within a poorly planned wilderness of roads, roundabouts and acres of windswept carparking. You might say that they are better than the usual – I still don’t think that it justifies them being given a prestigious architectural award. In fact I think that their presence on the list diminishes the value of all of the awards that were given out this year.

It’s only just occured to me that some of the references I used in earlier posts are from so long ago that a lot of people might have no idea what I was talking about.

‘Making a Modern Street’ was a manefesto project put forward by a group of architects, under the banner of Group 91, who had already been making individual statements and picking up individual awards for mostly small scale projects. As I understand it, the motivation (as well as a bit of understandable self promotion) was to counteract the emerging Zoe Development, low grade, comprehensive apartment redevelopment approach with something of much better quality and which would draw on, and connect with, the existing Georgian Dublin urban house tradition.

In the forward of the book published to accompany the exhibition, Shane O’Toole stated:

This isn’t the whole text, I’ve just quoted the bits that seem most relevant. I wouldn’t have necessarily used the term ‘Georgian’ to extol the virtues of all things past, but the essential points were that connecting with, and drawing on, tradition were going to be crucial to achieving real value in Dublin’s urban regeneration and, secondly, that repair of the urban fabric, rather that comprehensive replacement, by the block, would be the key to success.

That was seventeen years ago! Where has all that idealism gone?

Everywhere you look the opposite happened, The west side of Smithfield was clensed off all remnants of its original and subsequent development and blocked out in generic forms that make no attempt to connect with the heritage of the place. Arran Quay and Bachelor’s walk are carricatures of themselves. The Digital Hub, which was in public control, has been handed out for comprehensive redevelopment and the existing sprinkling of ‘Protected Structures’ treaded as inconveniences rather than models for contemporary regeneration. You could give the same assessment of the O’Connell Street proposal.

Maybe the members of Group 91 are embarrased by their work in the early 90s, the post modern influence etc. maybe they believe in different things now, but I would be of the opinion that there were some very valuable ideas there that have never been developed the way that they deserved to be.

Of all the practices in Group 91, it is O’D&T that went off in the most number of diferent directions. They have talent to burn, nobody doubts that, but sometimes you just wish they would slow down and take one theme at a time. Any good architectural movement lasts between thirty and seventy years, but they’ve tried to pack in seven or eight architectural movements into the last twenty years.

Just for the record, the O’D&T segment of the Making a Modern Street proposal (third from the left) was the least successful in my opinion. Grafton’s, (the curvy roofed one to the right) was the most elegant and Shay Cleary’s (no. 7) and McGarry NiEanaigh’s (no. 1) had the best ideas. Keogh’s was solid and O’Toole’s and McCullough-Mulvin’s weren’t bad.

Where is this show on? Is it the RIAI? I couldn’t find mention of it on the AAI website.

Also, gunter- well put. My own architectural awareness was only emerging in the early 1990s, so I probably saw that optimistic outlook as somewhat unremarkable, as opposed to the pretty radical statement of intent that it seems to have been. The Group 91 members may be embarrassed by their statement, but I’d agree- it’s not the original statement that should be embarrassing, it’s the way it has remained largely unfulfilled.

As an aside, it’s interesting to see what bits of the Modern Street ended up in other built schemes. And the picture reminds me- I must book another trip to Berlin. 😉

It’s on in the Architectural Archive on Merrion Square.

Aah, okay. Thanks.

Awards…..hmmmm
Q 1 – How many buildings built in Ireland in 2007. A 1 – Maybe over 3,000 to 4,000 projects of all shapes and sizes.
Q 2 – How many entries to the AAI awards (self censorship via membership of AAI or by aspiration). A 2 – 200 maybe…
Q 3 – Jury distinction as to validity (no rural projects this year, could equally be about any other issue, no conservation, no industrial, no pink……). A 3 – Remove 40% of entries (estimate – issue is the reduction of choices)
Q 4 – AAI maximum number of Awards A 4 – Seven
Q 5 – Salt the mine A 5 – Invite foreign or independent jury members but brief them very carefully about what is locally important (friendly) or worthy of recognition.
Q 6 – Make it anonymous A6 – Images of projects circulated prior to awards or AAI site visits…. quelle suprise?

Result
A narrow field, narrowed by prejudice (all sorts), tailored by prompting and discussed with only a modicum of rigor.
Only dissection is via the presentations
Ideas only barely interrogated or alternatives rarely embraced

Awards …. “same as it always is”

(From AAI website)

Aims of the AAI from 1896

“To promote and afford facilities for the study of architecture and the allied sciences and arts, and to provide a medium of friendly communication between members and others interested in the progress of architecture.”

From reading the above I would understand that the AAI’s aims are purely academic and whilst the RIAI awards are about the assesment and comparison of built works (ie the here and now) the AAI awards are an assesment and comparison of architectural ideas/theories primarily (ie the infinite) illustrated through the medium of buildings built during that calender year. Apologies for the philisophical jargon but I’m trying to draw a clear line between the two awards.

I personally feel that the AAI awards were hugely relevant during the “quiter” years up to the 80s and early 90s but seemed to then loose their way once the building boom of the late 90s kicked in. The AAI awards were a fantastic platform for projects, during that time, that due to economic shortcomings would have remained in the lower drawer of various architectural offices around the country. With the onset of the building boom in the mid 90s the challenge of “building” took its natural place to the fore amongst Irish architects and by its nature the AAI awards were not equipped for this with its policy of no site visits (just photos etc.) For this reason the RIAI awards became the true judge of architectural “built work” and remain so.

I think there is an important place for the AAI awards as they are based on a very strong academic premise that allows for a huge variety of entrants. They should just realise that their strengths are the RIAI Awards weaknesses as I would welcome a return to ideas like “Making a Modern Street” or Tom de Paors “Garden in Cork”. It will take alot of bravery on the part of the AAI comittee to go back to the original spirit of the AAI awards but it would be very refreshing.

Architecture is ideas, but it is also built work.

The reason that projects like “making a modern street” appeared in the AAI awards was that it was the best architecture that was being produced in the country at the time. Nothing of any comparable merit was being built . Hence any architect with more aspiration than “satisfying their client’s needs” (profit) sought the refuge of theoretical projects.

The reason that there are significantly fewer unbuilt projects nowadays (i think two this year) is simply that the same category of architects (although now largely changed) are being given opportunities to build.

ElSwanko your inferrence into the role of the AAI awards is interesting and thoughtful but i would be hesitant to hand over the regins of judging the state of the Irish built environment to the RIAI awards. If you look back over their last few years of awards they hardly strike as being the most liberated or criticly concious set of decisions.

Shadows acusations of the AAI being incestuouos might more accuratley be leveled at the RIAI awards which for me anyway give off a sheen of backslapping the mediocrity of the RIAI’s most prominent members rather than looking at what the work itself is saying………. if anything.

These were not accusations merely observations as each award panel has its own vagaries. Yes you can apply the same comments to the RIAI, AIA, Sterling awards, Pritzker etc…. Awards are by definition limited, first by who shows, up, secondly by the constitution of the jury (see numerous competition juries), thirdly by the zeitgeist, fourthly by fashion (often in spite of the zeitgeist – who or what is deemed “cool”). In other words do not ascribe more importance to them than necessary. Look at how many great directors in Hollywood were never rewarded with an Oscar because of sentimentality, fashion, commercial clout etc. in a particular year.. They are a way of promoting discussion but in terms of value time will tell. Will what was interesting, quirky, exciting today be the same in 10 years time…..

I agree that that’s how they should be viewed, but sadly, owing to a poor level of design awareness in the planning profession and elsewhere, there seems to be a tendency to defer to awards ceremonies as if they represent some objective measure of quality.

I’m not sure if the architecture profession should be taking this into account, or if the planners and others should be made aware of the subjective nature of them.

I often look at the stuff that got awards 10, 20 or 30 years ago and gasp. Presumably there’s a chance I’ll feel the same about this crop of buildings in another 10, 20 etc. years.

I think Francis Rambert the chairman of the AAI jury said it best …
….il a ete ecoeure par ce qu’il a vu…
…..Notre construction boom n’a pas delivre une architecture contemporaine dont l’Irelande peut etre fiere..
course what does he know about artist architects.. he is only the director of the Institut Francais d’Architecture
What? You can take up the pointless sarcasm of his observations directly with himself …, and just to help you out …
he was sickened by what he saw in Ireland … our building boom did not deliver a contemporary architecture of which Ireland can be proud…

@BTH wrote:

As for the discussion at hand, Irish practices are beginning to make headway in an international context – O’Donnell & Tuomey are building the Photographer’s gallery in London, a prestigious and significant project which will undoubtedly open doors to further commisions. Another of Irelands “artistic” practices – Grafton, are just completing a hugely impressive university building in Milan. it isn’t much but it’s a beginning.

oh yeah I forgot that qualifies as continental europe beating a path to our celebrated architects .. duh.. are you one of those people who thinks Kensington is in Ballsbridge.

@ctesiphon wrote:

owing to a poor level of design awareness in the planning profession and elsewhere,
I often look at the stuff that got awards 10, 20 or 30 years ago and gasp. Presumably there’s a chance I’ll feel the same about this crop of buildings in another 10, 20 etc. years.

you forgot to include Irish architecture bodies in the institutions with a poor level of design awarenes. Oh and some of us dont need to have 10 years of hindsight to gasp, we are gasping now at whats being done..guess you can include Franics Rambert in that ..

you can continue the discusion about what is an award as oppossed to the quality (lack ?) of . Anyways its a well know statisitc upwards of 75% of all private residential dwellings which receive an award are actually designed and built by architects for other architects or for family or friends, hardly an indicator of this art form winning over Joe (im not design aware) Public.:D

if you had been to Francis Rambert’s “critic’s lecture” you would know that he has a penchant for flayboyant starchitects who ejaculate all over any high profile site they can get their hands on. his talk was the lecture equivalent of a coffee table book. and that is a personal criticism not a contradictory one of the AAI awards.

i for one dont want a reproduction of continental europe’s courtship with ghery/ nouvel/ libeskind et al. which rambert espouses.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

oh yeah I forgot that qualifies as continental europe beating a path to our celebrated architects .. duh.. are you one of those people who thinks Kensington is in Ballsbridge.

Talking complete shi*e there as usual BoB. No I do not think that Kensington is in Ballsbridge (duh) and I believe that Milan happens to be in continental Europe (unless you know something I don’t). Anyway, whats the difference between commissions for Irish architects in continental Europe and in the UK? Surely any incursion into an international context is welcome.

Dear what? Making a Modern Street never appeared in the AAI Awards, although other ‘projects’ did at the time.

I got in today and had a look at this exhibition myself. I know the Irish Architectural Archive is a bit off the beaten track and it was a wet Tuesday, but not a single other member of the public showed up the whole hour I was there! If the annual awards are one of the ways that the profession is supposed to be communicating with the public, it’s not working!

By contrast, I stumbled on a (week long) exhibition of the entries to a modest concert hall architectural competition in Regensburg (Bavaria) last summer and you couldn’t get in the door with the crowds.

On the AAI exhibition itself, I was hoping the Hugenot Cemetry block had been submitted and passed over, but it wasn’t there in the also rans, so I guess Grafton are plotting a pincer move on the Downes Medal next year with that and the Italian job. I don’t know how the politics work in the AAI, but a devious little manoeuvre would be to entice Peter Zumptor over as the visiting assessor, but then again he’d probably love the whole homage thing.

I cannot agree with what on the O’D&T killiney house. There are a couple of stunning photographs of bits of the house against a spectacular landscape, but there are also several shots of some seriously butt ugly bits.

Of the other projects that didn’t make it out of the back room, I felt a bit sorry for the Cork Hospital. Compared with other projects, It seemed to be fiendishly complicated and not unaccomplished. The Beauty Salon on Emmet Place, also in Cork, though a fashion victim in it’s own right, did appear to have architectural as well as urban merit, conjured up out of little or nothing.

There was one interesting house extension in the back room that I felt might have merited a ‘special mention’, or whatever the terminology is. I don’t know who it’s by (probably some outfit I can’t stand) but, as box extensions go, I thought it was ahead of the one in the front room.

I hope it’s ok to take pictures of these things, there wasn’t anyone there to stop me.

What confounds me is the opening times of the exhibition. Short of taking a day off from work, there is no way to get in to see an exhibition that is only open from 10 till 5, Monday thru Friday. Would one late night, or even a Saturday be too much to ask?

@BTH wrote:

Talking complete shi*e there as usual BoB. No I do not think that Kensington is in Ballsbridge (duh) and I believe that Milan happens to be in continental Europe (unless you know something I don’t). Anyway, whats the difference between commissions for Irish architects in continental Europe and in the UK? Surely any incursion into an international context is welcome.

Yeah BTH you win that one, those two examples you give has proven to me that continental Europe is indeed beating a path to our celebrated artchitects, its a veritable stampede, the paths worn out we will have to lay some more of those crap paving stones if this keeps up … dear me what was I thinking 😉

@what? wrote:

i for one dont want a reproduction of continental europe’s courtship with ghery/ nouvel/ libeskind et al. which rambert espouses.

Congratulations you have cetainly gotten what you wanted for so. You must be delighted with what you see around you in Ireland as most of it would definitely not have been designed, approved or built on the continent of europe, Whilst Irish architects took the odd cheap Ryanair flight and came back with a few copycat ideas from their sojurns, the final product has the distinctly Irish stamp of the grubby hands, wellies, pints and ‘sure this grand, tis artists we are’ detail.

Glad to see summer has finally arrived , temperatures are up or has everyone suddenly gotten a little hot under the polo neck. Roll on the RIAI 2008 awards that should be comical.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

the paths worn out we will have to lay some more of those crap paving stones if this keeps up …

you are just wearing me out with your abject negativity BoB. I’m no happy clappy sure aren’t we all great “believer” in the cause of irish architecture, I’m as cynical and I complain and moan as much as the next person who has any concern about what passes for development and urban design in this country. Im sure you have plenty of valid points to make but why must you dress them up in such patronizing, sarcastic and insulting tones? For entertainment value? Im afraid you are only entertaining yourself… and there’s another word for people who indulge in such behavior…;)

Wanker, I think.

Lads, you’re not going to ‘win’ this one. Best policy is to ignore his posts, at least until he starts making sense.

@massamann wrote:

What confounds me is the opening times of the exhibition. Short of taking a day off from work, there is no way to get in to see an exhibition that is only open from 10 till 5, Monday thru Friday. Would one late night, or even a Saturday be too much to ask?

Agreed. I managed to get in yesterday at lunchtime, but I’m fortunate in being city centre based. And again, it was virtually deserted- just my date, me and one other bloke. If resources are the issue, I’d staff the damn thing myself some Sunday afternoon. I’d even waive my fee!

I didn’t get to see all the entries due to limited time, but a few things spring to mind, more to do with the exhibition itself than with the submissions. That’s part of the problem, in fact- I found it quite hard to get a feel for most of the buildings from the boards on display. Lots of close-ups of dinky details (and that lack of evidence of human habitation so beloved of architectural photographers), but little opportunity to see the buildings in context. If the point is to make funky posters, then fine, but if the point is to illustrate buildings for the audience, then it was lacking.

Also, I didn’t see any text other than that submitted by each firm (presumably). A little bit of insight into the judging process would have been worthwhile, rather than the usual promo fluff.

Re the buildings (in light of my comments above): I’d agree with gunter on the two extensions, i.e. the better one was the one on the back room, though neither really excited me (the kitchen of the Boyd Cody one looked more like a trendy web design office than a home, though the roof access looked to be a bit of fun); I thought the house in Portobello was an interesting approach to such a site; the warehouse in Galway is… a warehouse in Galway, with bits; the Mary I building in Limerick seemed pretty well thought out for a biggish college building, if a little bunkerish; and… what else was there? Aah yes, the housing backing onto Pearse Square (a father and son affair, judging by the names of the practices involved)- I thought this was one of the better schemes in the show, a considered approach to sensitive densification.

But as I say, these comments are based on the presentations only, i.e. are limited.

One thing I’d like to see is an exhibition of award winning buildings, say, five years after the award, to see how the ‘purity of the vision’ meets the realities of daily life. :rolleyes:

Noone’s answered the original question, which was “Where can I find photos of the winners online?”
All we’ve heard is moaning about how bad they are. Does anyone here have pictures of the winners so we can judge for ourselves?

I did have a good rummage around, but no joy.

Perhaps it’s a ploy to get people to buy the book? 😉

@ctesiphon wrote:

Lads, you’re not going to ‘win’ this one. Best policy is to ignore his posts, at least until he starts making sense.

Suggested that a page back, but that post mysteriously dissappeared.

In case anyone’s thinking of taking off early from work to catch the exhibition before it closes (at least one person I know was intending to do this), don’t bother. I went at lunchtime to see the bits I missed and it had been fully dismantled. Whatever about having relatively limited opening hours, i.e. no evenings or weekends. at the very least the advertised hours should be adhered to.

Not good enough, AAI.

Who are the AAI does anyone know?

Any news on AAI 2009 (28) prize winners?