Culture Ireland

Arts Council

RIAI

Embassy to Ireland in Italy

IAF

UCD


Furniture supplied by

Arper

Bellato


Individual Donation:
Florence Delany Cahill

Exhibition Armature Image

Grafton Architects

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara graduated from UCD in 1974 and are founder members of Grafton Architects established in 1977. They were members of Group 91, framework planners for the regeneration of Temple Bar, Dublin’s cultural quarter, where they were architects for Temple Bar Square, a new apartment and retail building and a new urban space. Lecturers at the School of Architecture University College Dublin since 1976 and visiting critics and external examiners to schools of architecture abroad, including the UK, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Directors Gerard Carty and Philippe O’Sullivan joined the practice in 1993 and 1992 respectively. During that time, they have worked as key project and design architects on a considerable number of buildings completed. Simona Castelli joined the practice in 2002 and has been project architect on the Bocconi project since then as well as working on other commissions. Kieran O’Brien and Ciara Reddy were project architects for the Government Building on Merrion Row, Dublin.

Anchor and Animation

Grafton Architects


This exhibit compares the spatial experience of two recently completed urban projects – one in Milan and one in Dublin. Multiple sequences of film, split across two screens are used to explore the ways in which each building frames its occupants’ relationship to the city.

While the spaces of the Department of Finance Building are held behind a vertical weave of limestone, the Bocconi University makes a horizontal weave of spaces, a labyrinth, a city in miniature. The two buildings anchor themselves into the bedrock of their city. Both are geological outcrops: each is of local stone, limestone and ceppo, stone carved from the earth. Each building becomes embedded into the weave of its city. Buildings are static, the city is static, and life enters in. Buildings and streets lie in wait. What does the building see? How does the citizen see the building?

 

Credits
Filmmakers: Bang Bang Teo in collaboration with David Chandler and Grafton Architects
Director/Camera: Mark McLoughlin
Editor: Lanka Haouche
Sound: Brian Cass
Concept & After Effects Editing: David Chandler
Specialist Advisor: Owen Drumm, Binaural Sound
Featured: Nicolo Di Blasi, Bocconi University, Milan; Strefano Casciani, Vice Editor, Domus, Milan; Silvia Milesi, Architect, Milan; Professor Elizabeth Hatz, Architect, Stockholm; Emilio Pereira, Structural Engineer, Bocconi University, Milan, Anna Ryan, Architect and Cellist
Still Photographs: Federico Brunetti, Denis Gilbert, Peter Maybury, Elizabeth Hatz, Grafton Architects