JL
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Just because you can afford to build something doesn’t mean you should put up the first thing that enters your head – the building on Georges Quay is an example of when the city was desperate to build something – anything – at a time when there was FA investment in the centre – ten years later its almost universally reviled. F Gehry has some excellent built works, but he also has his fair share of pooches – his name alone doesn’t guarantee quality
I would think the Dept of Trade + Industry is the exception rather than the rule. Other areas of design had strong early christian refs – garda insignia etc. The early Christian reference also pops up again and again in representing Ireland through architecture – for the first monument to Irish WW1 dead built 2 yrs ago at Messines Ridge in Belgium a round tower was built – I think this was a non-govt project
From a design point of view I think a problem with traditional ‘green’ buiildings is a heavy-handed green aesthetic – that German firm (Log-id I think) produced buildings which had such a strong aesthetic (all that white render and aluminium patent glazing) that it was a turn off for later designers. To be smart about propagating green design you have to infiltrate and green from within design/consumer culture – STEALTH design
I think any building built in Ireland is inherently Irish
With ref to e.carr – its interesting that the Irish free state decided that round towers/early christian stuff was the Irish national style – Finland had a similar question and decided that international modernism would be the direction their new-born state would take – it could have been us….
Oh for God’s Sake – go ahead, buy the architectural equivalent of the Nike trainer – beautiful, technically accomplished, designed more for fashion than its original function, and probably screwing the environment and/or someone in Singapore. Consume! Globalise!
Hi Greg F – I’m just wondering what ‘good architecture’ is if its going to be used to improve things. And in relation to Mr Gehry, his buildings look cool in photos on the one hand but they seem pretty environmentally unfriendly on the other.
Why do we pick buildings of a high visual quality but (for example) low environmental credentials as examples of good architecture? This architecture is good for tourism, its certainly good for Mr Gehry but is it good for us?
[This message has been edited by JL (edited 15 November 2000).]
What I found strange about PoMo before it thankfully passed away is that it all somehow managed to look so uniform, despite originating out of a theory about diversity and arbitrariness of style/dogma.
My view is that all post-modernist theory does is put modernism in its place as a socially constructed ‘style’ rather than a fundamental truth. Somehow PoMo architects have concluded that this means all buildings should have classical doo-dahs everywhere and damn the brief.
Or have I got it totally wrong?
(I am surprised that people are still into all that)
[This message has been edited by JL (edited 14 November 2000).]
Personality architect – visually exciting – highly individualistic – putting places on maps –
Is there a major pre-occupation with the visuals? Do architects nowadays design their buildings with the architectural media in mind? Do buildings have to be visually exciting in order to make an imprint with audiences which will only see it in photos? Do city authorities do the same thing when commissioning signature architects – the building as the logo of the local tourist board? Would James Gandon cut the mustard in today’s world?
My experienceof working in England as an architect was strikinglly similar to my experience here. Architects’ preoccupations were the same, just that clients and the public demand a higher quality of design, although at the end of the day the quality:dross ratio is almost the same in my opinion.
I think the wooden building has a bizarrely medieval feel – an arts and crafts revival crossed with the Lord of the Rings. Very very strange.
Why within Trinity – the best thing about a new school of architecture would be the ability to start up outside the old establishments. Trinity is so self-contained and connects very poorly with its environs (it can even have somthing of a ‘colony’ feel to this day).
Surely architectural education should be out there – i.e. anywhere it isn’t now, rigidly locked in a specific location of class, myopic taste and a slavish servility to industry.
