Architecture & Public Art Wednesday 8th June 2011, from 12.30-16.00 at The LAB, Foley Street, Dublin
Written by Dariusz Cyparski on 03-06-11 | Categories: Blogging
A development afternoon for architects exploring the potential for architecture as a public art practice
Invited Participants: Elizabeth Hatz; Dominic Stevens; Kevin Donovan; Declan Long; Valerie Connor; Rosie Lynch; Cultrustruction; Michelle Browne; Nathalie Weadick; Ruairí Ó Cuív.
Context: The development day for architecture is a collaborative initiative between the Dublin City Council and the Irish Architecture Foundation in association with the Architectural Association of Ireland. It is being organised in the context of Dublin City Council’s recently launched public art programme, which aims to offer artists across all artform disciplines the opportunity to make new artwork that engages with the city in different ways. This day is designed to focus on the artform of architecture and the potential for architects to create public art works. It has been conceived as part of a series to support practitioners from the different artform sectors to engage with the Dublin City Public Art Programme and support those interested in making proposals.
Presentations The session is organised around three presentations.
(i) The potential for architecture within the public art field
(ii) New directions in the teaching of architecture being developed through a joint initiative between the School
of Architecture, UCD and NCAD
(iii) Commonage, Callan, County Kilkenny - a case-study that significantly engages with architecture through a
curated programme.
Each presentation will be followed by a commentary response by architects and artists, aimed to generate discussion and support questions and answers.
Ruairí Ó Cuiv, (Dublin City Council Public Art Manager) and Nathalie Weadick (Director, Irish Architecture Foundation) will be present to introduce the public art programme and answer questions throughout the day.
Reserve a place by e-mailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Please note that as places are limited it is essential to book
1 Public art by definition is broad and challenging to define. Within this context – the Dublin City Public Art Programme -it is understood as supporting the commissioning, creation and realisation of new artworks (in any artform discipline, including architecture) that engage with the city in different ways.
The Afternoon
Introduction (12.30 -12.45hrs)
Ruairí Ó Cuív and Nathalie Weadick present a short overview of the Dublin City Public Art Programme and the relevance of architecture as part of this invitation for submissions for new artwork that engages with the city.
Session 1 (12.45 – 13.45hrs)
How can (and do) architects address and engage with art and public art– exploring examples of work by Irish and international architects? Presentation by Elizabeth Hatz Professor of Architecture at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. She also teaches at SAUL School of Architecture, University of Limerick since the start of that school in 2006. As head of SAR (Swedish Association of Architects) in 93-94, Hatz is a co-founder of Fargfabriken, the internationally renowned scene for Art and Architecture in Stockholm with a new satellite venue in Östersund, in the north of Sweden. Elizabeth Hatz was curator for Ev+A 2010. Response by Dominic Stevens -an architect, builder and writer whose philosophy offers ways for a new type of architecture and a new way of living.
LUNCH: (13.45)
Session II: (14.15)
Exploring new directions for architecture that broaden the teaching, understanding and future potential for architecture that is being developed through a collaborative initiative between UCD School of Architecture and NCAD.
Presentation by Kevin Donovan, UCD, School of Architecture & Declan Long Lecturer in contemporary art and cultural theory, NCAD, whose current research addresses representations of the city in contemporary art, with particular reference to engagements with public space in recent art. Response Valerie Connor was part of the artist group Blue Funk in the 1990’s; the visual arts director at Project Arts Centre from 1998-2001, and Irish Commissioner for the Venice and San Paola Biennials in 2003 and 2004. A former board member of IMMA, she was also the Arts Council’s visual arts advisor from 2006-2010. She writes on art and lectures on BA and MA modules at DIT and IADT.
Session III: (15.15)
COMMONAGE is a five-year active research project situated in Callan town, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland intended to expand the field of architecture and provide a resource for future development to be measured in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. Seeking a critical position in current discourses around public space and participation we have found the historical notion of ‘the commons’ to be relevant to our times, even urgent, and worth further investigation. http://www.commonagecallan.com Presentation: by COMMONAGE curators, Jo Anne Butler, Tara Kennedy, Rosie Lynch Response: Michelle Browne -an artist who has an extensive practice in performance, public event based works and curation.
General questions arising from the day 15.45-16.00hrs Ruairí Ó Cuív & Nathalie Weadick (with contributions from participants)
www.dublincitypublicart.ie
www.architecturefoundation.ie
Reserve a place by e-mailing
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Please note that as places are limited it is essential to book
Derelict Swimming Baths at Sandymount - Miriam Delaney
Written by Paddy Cahill on 13-03-10 | Categories: Architecture | Categories: Blogging | Categories: Interesting | Categories: Ireland
Sandymount Strand is a large tidal beach to the south west of Dublin city centre. Land here has been subject to much mutation over the centuries. The present coast-line is at least a mile from where the medieval high tide mark stood, and much of what constitutes the present Sandymount village is built on reclaimed land. Sandymount, originally known as Irishtown, was one of the pleasure grounds of Georgian Dublin, and baths have existed in this area since medieval times. Sandymount Baths form part of a chain of bathing places along Dublin Bay.
Image Credit- ‘Martello’ magazine article ‘‘Bathing Houses of Dublin Bay’ Summer 1988
The baths at Sandymount were constructed as a replacement of the older ‘Cranfield’ baths (the site of which is now about half a mile inland- close to the ‘Our Lady, Star of the Sea’ Catholic Church ). The Cranfield baths were enormously popular as they contained both cold and hot water baths and had accommodation nearby for visitors. The ‘new’ baths at Sandymount (officially know as The Merrion Baths) were received with criticism form the outset. The traditional horse drawn bathing boxes on Sandymount strand were forcibly removed which caused local indignation.
‘The Pembroke Township Commissioners, ….resolved on the destruction of the private bathing boxes, and issued a decree for their removal. This very naturally created great indignation and remonstrance among the inhabitants’
Complaints were also made that the baths silted up frequently and the water became stagnant. The baths were unpopular with the expected visitor numbers never materializing.
‘the water within the basins becomes in a great measure stagnant and foul, and sediment which collects at the bottom can only be removed by artificial means and at considerable outlay. In other details, various defects both of plan and execution might be specified’
image credit: Private Archive; Brian Siggins
The baths were built of cast in situ concrete and originally were linked to the coast road by an iron and timber pier (approximately 75m long), which housed a bandstand and changing rooms. Photos of the baths and pier in operation are few, no references to the Sandymount Baths (or Merrion Baths) are to be found at the Architectural Archives and they feature in only one photo in the National Photographic Archive. The photos shown here come from the personal archive of local historian Brian Siggins.
image credit: Private Archive; Brian Siggins
The baths were constructed in 1883, and were split into male and female swimming areas. In total the baths measured 40m by 40m, and were fed with sea water via a pumping system which stretched out to the open sea, the bath water was emptied daily and refilled with fresh sea-water. The baths were closed in 1923 and the pier and all the timber structures demolished, all that remains now is the concrete sub- structure.
image credit: Private Archive; Brian Siggins
The fortunes of the Victorian baths (most constructed in the19th century) were linked to the rise of the railway. Baths such as those at Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire gained rapidly in popularity with the advent of the Kingstown railway line constructed in 1837, which allowed Dubliners easy access to clean water and fresh air. These suburban swimming baths remained in use much longer than those close to the city- the Dun Laoghaire and Blackrock baths were only closed in the 1980s.
Title ‘Blackrock Baths Circa 1900’
‘Blackrock Baths’ Image Credit- http://www.wikipedia .org
‘Dun Laoighre Baths’
The baths closer the city centre, such as those at Sandymount and Clontarf suffered, firstly from the pollution caused by industry at the quays and secondly from frequent silting up. The Sandymount baths closed in 1923 (figures 3, 4 & 5 show the baths in operation). Remarkably little evidence- archival, physical or oral- remains of the baths. The concrete is currently in a poor state, the walls are badly eroded at and heavily graffitied. The perimeter walls are breached facing the sea. There have been a number of half- hearted campaigns to restore the baths or construct a new promenade or pier, at present Dublin City Council present no proposals for the future of the baths.
‘corroded concrete’
‘Swimming Bath walls breached’
‘view from inside the Baths ‘
Blog post by Miriam Delaney
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