OBG is delighted to present ‘Of de Blacam and Meagher’, ‘A Space for Learning’, ‘Made’ and ‘Struth’. The preview will take place on Thursday 8th September from 7pm – 9pm.

Of de Blacam and Meagher

8/9/2011 – 29/10/2011

“of de Blacam and Meagher” represented Ireland at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition 2010 in Venice, Italy. Ireland’s participation at Venice, and the exhibition’s return to Ireland is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council of Ireland.

Curated by Tom dePaor, Peter Maybury, Alice Casey and Cian Deegan, it seeks to communicate the cultural landscape of Ireland through the seminal work of de Blacam and Meagher Architects. It addresses de Blacam and Meagher’s built and unbuilt portfolio of the last 33 years and will mark the donation of these documents to the Irish Architectural Archive. The exhibition takes the form of a book unbound, containing volumes of drawings and photographic reproductions from the archive, contemporary photography and readings of the works with commentaries. As both archive and reading room, the space will be furnished with and lit by items from the de Blacam and Meagher archive.

Formed in 1976, this architectural practice has built houses and places of work, commerce, education and worship. In turn, the influence of de Blacam and Meagher has permeated the many facets of Irish life with a distinct cultural presence. The quality of their work has been recognised both in Ireland and internationally, and the book Architects Today refers to them as ‘the godfathers of contemporary Irish architecture’. Known for their focus on making simple buildings and the employment of beautiful and sustainable materials, some of their best-known buildings in Ireland include Cork Institute of Technology, Chapel of Reconciliation at the Catholic shrine at Knock, Co. Mayo, the Samuel Beckett Theatre Dublin and the restoration of the Dining Hall and Atrium in Trinity College Dublin for the University’s 400th anniversary celebrations.

Ireland’s participation at Venice, and the exhibition’s return to Ireland for this national tour, is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council of Ireland.

Two short films by Ruán Magan, one about the installation in Venice, and the other with interviews from the commissioner and curators, will be displayed during the exhibition.

A Space for Learning
8/9/2011 – 1/10/2011

A SPACE FOR LEARNING is a groundbreaking exhibition showcasing  the winning ten designs from a competition organized by the Irish Architecture Foundation that challenged current thinking on school design. 120 architects worked with 1500 students in 90 schools across Ireland in the developmental phase of this project as architects collaborated directly with Transition Year students on the design of educational spaces.

Ten winning architect-student teams from counties Cavan, Limerick, Louth, Cork and Dublin then created films, installations, models and drawings to illustrate their ideas about learning spaces and environments.

Sruth

(Sruth is the Irish for stream, current, flow: the flowing together of ‘sruth cainte’ (torrents of speech); parallel classes of school children; going with or against the stream – in the sense of confirming with standards; the flow of rocks such as slate that alters structural arrangements, and effortless advancement are rich metaphors for this project)

This installation – Sruth – disrupts the current paradigm and seeks an affirmation of architectural authorship that reaches to the under-currents of an intellectual position to explore the tectonic qualities of making and experience of building as well as the contemporary cultural context of a generic modular-build school construction project.

Sruth is an evocation: an interpretation of an architectural idea for such a school project – a space for learning, indeed – for the Irish language sector in Belfast.  It intends a representation of the experience by a young child of the space of a classroom that is physically connected to a courtyard, an external play space and the sky: confirming a place in the world. It seeks to invest the interior with particularity.

Built language like spoken language has its root in place: in the history of a place and the collective memories and shared narrative of a community. The streams and rivers, now hidden and buried, which shaped the morphology of Belfast and which fed the industries of the city still feed the imagination of citizens and provide rich metaphors in a confluence of ideas that connect architecture to place, literature and local history.

MADE
7/10/2011 – 29/10/2011

MADE represents 5 young architectural firms, who share common interests and concerns about architecture. Their practices are grounded in a collective conversation that takes place in pooled work-spaces and through teaching together in Dublin and Belfast. Having come out of a long period of excesses in architecture both here and abroad they are not interested in architecture being pushed to make an image, but in something quieter, and more embedded in a place.

They believe that where a building is, the people that build it and how it is built are integral to the design process and the spaces that result. They therefore aim to create buildings that provide contemporary architecture that is not only more sustainable but which is native to its society and a result characterful and appropriate. The belief is that architecture should be an inherently generous activity and this generosity extends to the design process too, and should include wider ideas about who the building is for, the skills of those who make it, and a broader responsibility to society and the environment.

With this in mind they decided to exhibit 5 models of simple dwellings that they are in the process of designing or building currently. Each model does not describe a finished building, but rather explores ideas that lie behind the design. Placing the five models together allows for a conversation to take place between the models and hopefully allow those who view the work to see more than the usual finished projects or broad polemics which are more commonly associated with architectural exhibitions.