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That is because plutonium (fast breeder reactors) and Fusion (deuterium) would extend the range infinitely
Your’re right but then it is neither in the top 5 since Bus Aras. It woulod be better to form a crtique of the work itself than place it in a ranking scheme. Marmite is an interesting description, but if you were to follow the analogy christmas pudding would be more appropriate. Lots of different ingredients boiled to form a glutinous mass without any single unifying theme.
“Ãras Chill Dara was awarded in the RIBA European Awards 2006, and was described as a project “developed with singular confidence and brio.”” Didn’t visit the building then?
As this is a material change of the facade it would require planning permission. If it does not have planning permission it is an illegal development. You can join the rest of the dots…….
1. Awards are not only a consequence of quality but of political influence. One might discount early AAI awards because of the narrowness of the constituency.
2. Architects must take some responsibility for performance, at least designing so that a building might hope to perform in the real world.
3. The Biennale project suffered from a lack of technical and architectural coherence with a mixture of constructional methodologies, which either illustrates a naiveté about such things, a desire to subvert them or an essay on the total disconnect between architecture and the methods of building.
4. In an world lacking differentiation in professions, art and other realms, architects have attempted to regain a rarefied platform by the use of the new, the original act, the difference. unfortunately this usually means that in order to be different extremes of expression are rife, leading usually to 2. or 3. hoping to get 1.
5. The ranelagh school suffers from many of the same difficulties in 3. Disconnected elements, the brick blockhouses on the corner, the steel framed stoa to the rear, the playground (roof) facing the wrong way, the timber extensions to the rear and the stone/concrete fire escape (after-thought it seems) to the front.
6. 1. is possible especially if you desire to be considered part of a particular milieu and thus Ranelagh owes a lot to Bonell & Gill and other Spanish, proto rationalist modernist work. However these are quotations rather than a piece of writing in its own right.
7. Ranelagh pushes the modernist objectification of function (via Stirling & others) into the realm of post classical thinking, with its two bays, large formal room at the middle which places it well within the post modern body of work, while not admitting it. Certainly better than the woeful Children’s Court and IFC but still short on the coherent thread.
8. Where is disappoints however is in the lack of embrace in the user, the child and while the children offer much praise, it is relative, since what can they compare it against and certainly it is better than a tin shed which it replaced.
9. Being critical is not useful. It is better to illuminate so that people can make their own mind up. Generally I am not a fan, the work tends towards the shallow projection of image over content and the disappointment continues. A good graphic in a magazine does not architecture make.
Ok so we have gone from being critical about everything to being critical about nothing. Raising up various candidates on pedestals is not a progressive way forward, especially when you see the quality of work that appears daily in Europe and in the new accession countries. For the most part most of the work here is by and large pedestrian intellectually and suffers seriously from an inability to bring the complete composition to a meaningful relevant conclusion. The Ranelagh School, while being one of the better works by ODT it certainly has major questions over its relationship to it s subject. So too does the Glucksman. Just because it is different does not grant it absolution to be merely wilful. Regardless of stylistic preferences we should be working toward a critical position that can discuss these matters without relying on accusations of snobbery or axe grinding. The work has to present itself without the cloak of favouritism or influence and be seen in its true state as is. A case in point is Henngean.Peng’s Kildare Offices that will likely receive awards but is a seriously flawed work conceptually and materially. Yet we will get threads extolling the adventurousness, the “dynamic” facade, the “social” ramps and the crisp brutal detailing. There will be little time for the mundane-ness of the curtain wall, the uncomfortable ramps or the unresolved joints and corners.
The “lighting” poles have a distinctly Chinese feel (like those small garden candles you can get at the Asia Store). The image is still cheesy.
The Athlone project was advertised in the EU journal under Design Management and not as a comeptition or tender, maybe this occured here also. Since there is obviously Public Money (OPW) involved there should be more accountability.
This is like watching a car accident in slow motion as the abbey creeps its way down river only to collide first with the Roche”parmesan shaker” national conference centre (new hybrid there, guaranteed a full house most nights) on its way to meet the Liebeskind “swiss wedge” art centre to rest finally in the middle of the Liffey. The question is, does cheese float?
Somebody once told me that the selection of any winner in any competition is a reflection on the assessors who make the selection. This result is a surprise, not necessarily by what was included but by what was left out. As for the school this is a building designed by and for adults. The details, scale and organisation are less about the direct experience of the young and more about the rarefied air of the adult.
