Remarks at the Presentation Of The Riai Gold Medal For Architecture 2004-2006
Royal Institute of The Architects of Ireland, Dublin, 8th November 2013
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very pleased to have this opportunity to be here this afternoon to present what is widely acknowledged as Ireland’s most prestigious award in the field of architecture: the RIAI’s Triennial Gold Medal. May I extend my warmest congratulations to the Gold Medal Winners for the years 2004 to 2006, Tom Maher and Kevin Bates, who creatively reinterpreted the Russian ‘poustinia’ motive, in the shape of four light-flooded retreat dwellings nestled at the foot of the Comeragh mountains, near Kilsheelan, in county Tipperary.
Ba mhaith liom freisin mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le hUachtarán an RIAI, Michelle Fagan, as an gcuireadh a chuir sí chugam le bheith i láthair chun an dámhachtain seo a bhronnadh agus libhse go léir as an bhfíor-chaoin fáilte a chuir sibh romham. Is eol dom go maith gurb iomaí beart de chuid an RIAI a chuireann na comhaltaí i gcrích go deonach: rud is fianú ar an spiorad dlúthpháirtíochta agus pobail atá taobh thiar den oiread seo dea-nithe dearfacha sa sochaí seo gainne.
[I also wish to thank the RIAI’s President, Michelle Fagan for inviting me to present this award and all of you for your warm welcome. I am keenly aware that much of the RIAI’s realisations are achieved by members acting in a voluntary capacity, which is testament to the spirit of solidarity and community that is the driving force of so much that is good and positive in our society.]
This is my first visit to the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland as Uachtarán na hÉireann, and I would like to start by acknowledging the great contribution which this venerable institution, founded in 1839, has made to our country’s built environment.
This year’s awards coincide with the Eileen Gray retrospective exhibition, which was curated by the Pompidou Centre in Paris and is now on display at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham. In the speech I gave last February in Paris to mark the opening of that exhibition, I mentioned the fact that the RIAI presented an exhibition of Gray’s work in Dublin in 1973, that is, at a time when this great leading figure of the modern design movement was getting scant recognition in her homeland. Such capacity to discern and honour talent does credit to this Institute.
The aesthetic, functional, and technical character of the buildings which have won the RIAI competition over the years, and the materials used in them, have evolved in very significant ways since the Medal was first presented, in the year 1936. Those buildings from various eras reflect the transformations undergone by Irish society: Busáras, an early example of modern ‘International Style’ architecture in Ireland, designed by Michael Scott in the 1940s, Croke Park Stadium, a superstructure to which I myself am no stranger to these days, designed by Gilroy McMahon in the 1980s, or O’Donnell and Twomey’s Multi-Denominational School in Ranelagh are but a few of such milestone realisations.
There would be much to say about the recent evolution of Irish architecture, but I will content myself with formulating one general observation. While it is encouraging to observe that, throughout the last two decades Irish architectural practices have demonstrated their ability to win international competitions, this same period has witnessed a profound alteration of Ireland’s built landscape – not always for the better.
Today the edges of many Irish towns and villages are skirted by rows of identical, vacant new homes – generic, computer-generated visions of domesticity and the good life. If Scott’s Busáras or O’Donnell and Twomey’s Multi-Denominational School can be seen as reflecting societal trends – modernisation and secularisation in the cases in point –, then by the same token, the empty concrete shells that dot our urban and rural settings bear witness to the financialisation of the Irish economy. This is a landscape born of reckless speculation. Ruins of a future that never was.
Our construction sector as a whole is coming out of a disturbing chapter in its history, when houses and apartments were not primarily seen as dwellings built to shelter human lives, but as investment and portfolio assets. We now know that unless development is pursued in a sustainable manner, the economic and social benefits that flow from it can quickly go to waste. Your profession is now facing serious economic hardships, but we can have confidence that Irish architects will rise from these current difficulties and my wish for you is that you come back better and stronger than ever.
Competitions such as this one, which highlights excellence in Irish architecture, can contribute to the renewal of the profession’s standards. I am quite taken by the fact that the Gold Medal is awarded retrospectively, to a building of distinction which has proved itself in use. Too often in our fastmoving society, there is a tendency to rush to judgement, and the passage of time is undoubtedly a most valid test with which to judge the quality of a construction.
The relationship to time, the difficulty to disengage oneself from the fast running stream of obligations and instant communications, is a major dimension of our contemporaries’ experience. It is probably no coincidence if this year’s Gold Medal is going to four ‘retreat dwellings’, conducive to silence, mindfulness and the contemplation of our natural surroundings, perhaps indicating an irrepressible longing for symmetry.
May I congratulate again Tom Maher and Kevin Bates on their ‘poustinia’ cabins, built on the grounds of Glencomeragh House which, once a scholasticate, is now run as a prayer and retreat house by the Rosminian order. Derived from a Russian word meaning ‘desert,’ the poustinia refers, in the Orthodox tradition, to a secluded and rudimentary dwelling where one withdraws to pray and fast.
With their glassed inner courtyard and their large windows opening either onto the grassy hills or the river’s waters, Bates and Maher’s cabins are dedicated to the theme of light. And for those temporary hermits who find it difficult to genuinely retreat from the distractions of our busy world, I note that satellite TV and Internet access can be provided!
All three other projects which were shortlisted by the Gold Medal Jury reveal a rising level of attention being granted to the natural environment. The inclined facades of the two bars that constitute the new Kildare County Offices have been designed by Heneghan Peng Architects so as to form a seamless continuity with the grass surface of the Civic Garden they enclose. Reconnecting with the great European tradition of central squares, this garden is conceived as a public space conducive to social interactions.
The Lewis Glucksman Gallery, designed by O’Donnell and Twomey Architects for University College Cork’s campus, comprises a podium clad in limestone, which relates the new construction to the architectural language of the university buildings, and a timber clad gallery which evokes the surrounding woodlands. As for the SAP Building, a ‘contact centre’ designed by Bucholz McEvoy Architects for a Galway-based German software company, it has been conceived so as to reduce reliance on energy coming from non-renewable sources.
I commend the three architectural practices concerned on these buildings, which are fine realisations in their own right, but which also hint towards the architectural trends of tomorrow. I wish you all every success in your future endeavours. As we rebuild our economy, it is of the utmost importance that our citizens and professions make their own imaginative and practical contributions to our shared future. This afternoon we celebrate a clear and practical example of what this aspiration can accomplish.
Más fíor nach mór don ailtireacht is fearr Zeitgeist a ré féin a inchorprú, ansin, seo í an uain inar cheart don ailtireacht an bhratach a iompar don teacht aniar, don chruthaitheacht, don bheartaíocht, don seiftiúlacht, don cháilíocht agus don phroifisiúntacht. Tuigeann Éire go bhfuil sí ag crosbhóthar mar a bhfuil cailíochtaí den sórt sin níos riachtanaí na riamh dár bhforbairt mar náisiún agus mar phobal.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.
[If the best architecture must positively embody the spirit of its time, then the time has come for architecture to be counted as a standard bearer of resilience and creativity, of ingenuity and resourcefulness, of quality and professionalism. Ireland finds itself at a juncture where such qualities are more necessary than ever to our development as a nation and as a people.
Thank you.]