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Conversation Club, a lecture series presented by The Office of Public Works (OPW) in partnership with the National Library of Ireland (NLI), is founded on a deceptively-simple premise: public conversations with architects.
Architects are typically well equipped to talk about their work to public audiences, yet the notion of public conversation has a deeper resonance here. Unique in its presentation by public bodies, the lecture series signals a new wave of public-sector support behind the value of design in the built environment, and champions the architects on the ground promoting it. It is perhaps counter to narratives presented in recent times, touting design as a frivolous expense, specifically with regards to the prioritisation of ‘cost and efficiency over design standards’ [1], as if these ambitions are somehow opposed.
While founded on a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) basis, the lectures are free, and open to anyone, offering architects an opportunity to state their case in support of design thinking and advocate for the profession at-large.
On this particular evening it was REIR Studio’s turn to take to the stand at the Joly Theatre in the NLI. REIR are a relatively new architectural practice in contrast to their peers in the series, which include the likes of ABK Architects and Donaghy + Dimond Architects, as well as international practices Galmstrup and Duncan McCauley.
Conor Sreenan, State Architect with the OPW and host for the evening, described the practice as part of the ‘jilted generation’ - a generation of architects who graduated out of the 2008 recession, finding themselves increasingly locked out of larger-scale and public works projects.
However, as demonstrated through the depth and variety of projects on display, REIR appear to be outliers in this regard, with substantial experience in public work. Formed in early 2020 by Mandy Channon and Colin MacSuibhne, in the early formation of the practice REIR found themselves with time on their hands . They dedicated this time to the tedious application process for small works projects in Ireland - public projects that notably do not require minimum turnovers to be considered. With a success rate of about 1 in 10 applications, REIR eventually found themselves with a respectable amount of educational commissions. Of the nine projects presented, seven were educational projects - a growing body of work that inspired a palpable sense of optimism in the room.
Many of the commissions were for Special Educational Needs (SEN) classrooms for schools scattered across the country. These projects often involved careful intervention into an existing fabric of playspaces and mid-century buildings - many of which were Basil Boyd-Barrett schools [2].
It is apparent that existing structures and contexts play a vital role in the practice’s approach. A series of carefully-articulated survey and demolition drawings are presented at the fore of each project, evidencing an almost surgical interventionist approach that extends beyond the refurbishment of buildings themselves, manifesting in a broader ethos of repair.
REIR’s projects demonstrate an uncanny ability to find opportunities and to unlock value on constrained and challenging sites, be it from a spatial or budgetary perspective - often both. Their work always looks for alternative ways ‘in’ to a project; to find novel means of solving the problem, and to challenge the brief wherever possible. This approach is as intelligent as it is pragmatic, showcasing a deep understanding of what it takes to make architecture happen.
On the residential side, this manifests in challenging clients' preconceptions of what the desired outcome looks like. By focusing on the ambitions - growing family, more space, connection to the garden - rather than the desired material outcomes - ‘an extension’ - REIR can begin to explore ways to open-up a project, figuratively and literally.
A bungalow in Greystones is cast upon the projector: red lines indicate the points of incision, domestic acupuncture. Walls and rooms are removed to make space for a generous open-plan kitchen-living-dining area, enabled predominantly by a single bay window, provided here in lieu of extension, to establish a renewed connection to the cascading garden beyond. Ultimately, it was through working-with, rather than adding-on, that unlocked the project. The vaulted ceilings that sail overhead serve as a reminder of what we can do with what we already have.
Similarly, a cottage in Dundrum is presented as a reaction to as-found conditions; a stone wall extending inside to outside, a novel crank in the plan, and a cherry blossom in the garden. The two-storey brick-faced extension is perhaps most notable for its a double-height void, viewed initially by the clients as ‘wasted space’ within such a tight footprint - it has proven to be a much-loved feature of the extension, particularly by the family’s newest arrival. It features a clerestory window to introduce dynamic light and unexpected views of the cherry blossom that provides seemingly endless entertainment.
It is moments like these that seem to define many of REIR’s projects; a framed view of the landscape between schoolyard canopies, the joy of students racing down oversized ramps. Their work evokes a celebration of the everyday, as achieved through an understanding of practical realities, an ethos that extends across both their residential and educational output.
There is a sense of refinement throughout the projects; of learning and developing both details and systems of working. Projects are consciously adopted to dovetail with anticipated lapses in stage approvals (to which payments are often deferred). Details resolved in one project carry forward to the next, economies in design make space for architecture - deceptively simple geometries, figures and details are deployed as a mechanism of unlocking value elsewhere in a project in a bid to make the ordinary exceptional.
REIR’s work demonstrates a deep understanding of people and an ability to respectfully push back, to challenge convention, and ultimately, to find solutions people didn’t even know they wanted. This is not a case of the architect imposing their vision on the unsuspecting public; it is about having the tools to facilitate a meaningful conversation, to develop a mutual understanding and go beyond expectations in order to define the core ambitions of the work. This is the art of the brief.
The value of this particular skillset has been described by many architects over time, but perhaps it is the late Peter Aldington, the uncompromising and visionary British architect, who best described the humanity and empathy it demands in an essay about briefs:
‘The brief is the means by which the designer may come to understand the difficulties, disciplines and customs of a way of life … It is based firmly on existing functions and patterns of life as well as future needs …
The brief is a combined ‘exploration’ carried out by architect and client together. The architect learns about the difficulties, problems and desires of his client. The client learns of pressures outside his own requirement which will also influence the building design. It is essential to achieve this deep mutual understanding at a very early stage in the association before design work starts.
The initial process of briefing is not easy for either client or architect … The clue to producing a good brief, and consequently a good working design, is - simply - investigatory interest and enthusiasm’.
- Peter Aldington on briefs [3].
There is often limited room to exercise this skill in public works projects, but in a particularly impactful anecdote, REIR recalled a project where the initial brief outlined a location for SEN classrooms that would ultimately segregate these classrooms from the rest of the school and invariably produce a sense of separation for the students that required additional assistance. In observing this, REIR advocated for the restoration of an existing building and repositioning of the proposed classrooms to a more equitable location. It was recognised that this move would ultimately result in increased costs - a hard sell in a public works project where margins are squeezed, yet the necessity was understood and the move received public support. This was undoubtedly a commercial risk to both the project and the practice that arose on the subject of principles, and might be one that a more world-weary practice would be unlikely to take.
It is often espoused that your ethics become your reputation, and seeing the capacity for REIR to go from strength to strength with this spirit should be a call to arms for more architects to do the same.
‘To make a building well assumes an understanding of people - to build otherwise is degrading.
Materials and people; understand them - then build.’
- Peter Aldington (1933-2026)
REIR’s lecture concluded with an engaging conversation that spanned procurement issues, the inevitable appropriation of buildings once handed over, and the value in intermediaries and advocates in the design process.
On its ninth rendition, Conversation Club has solidified its footing as a valuable new contribution to the architectural calendar, seamlessly relevant alongside long-established fixtures by the likes of the IAF and the AAI - providing a distinctively public space to discuss and engage with our built environment and those involved in its making.
As the lights flickered on in the Joly Theatre, there was a sense of hope for the future. This was REIR Studio’s first public lecture of their work. It will not be the last
the write-up is supported by the Arts Council through the Arts Grant Funding Award 2026.
1. Paul, Mark. ‘Cost to take priority over ‘aesthetics’ in future State infrastructure projects.’ The Irish Times, Dublin. 27.06.2025. Available at: Cost to take priority over ‘aesthetics’ in future State infrastructure projects – The Irish Times, accessed 14/05/2026
2. O’Flaherty, Enda. ‘Modernising National School design during the mid 20th century - Basil Raymond Boud Barrett - Architect of National Schools for the Office of Public Works’, endaoflaherty.com, 08.02.2019. Available at: Modernising National School design during the mid-20th Century – Basil Raymond Boyd-Barrett – Architect of National Schools for the Office of Public Works | Disused School Houses – Home Page Accessed 14/05/2026
3. Aldington, Peter. ‘Houses: Created by Peter Aldington’. 2016. RIBA Publishing: London. p.10-11.
On the afternoon of 9 May, the Hunting Room in the conference suite at Castletown House in Celbridge, Co. Kildare was full of people who had forsaken the rare sunshine to hear architectural and social historian Adrian Tinniswood give an illustrated lecture on his latest book, The Houses of Guinness: The Lives, Homes and Fortunes of the Great Brewing Dynasty. The book was published by Scala in November 2025 to coincide with the release of the Netflix historical drama series House of Guinness, and it is as rich in entertaining anecdotes and visual opulence as any production company could possibly desire. The same was true of the lecture, which was amply illustrated with photographs of the various houses under discussion.
Professor of British Cultural History at the University of Buckingham, Adjunct Professor of History at Maynooth University, and author of 19 previous books, Tinniswood is adept at conveying the human side of architectural history to a broad audience. He delivered the talk with great verbal and visual storytelling, and more than a touch of humour, as when stating that by 1852 Benjamin Lee Guinness had already doubled the size of St Anne's in Clontarf and owned a house in Mayfair, but 'that was not enough, so he bought a little weekend shooting lodge' — a photograph of the sprawling Ashford Castle appearing on screen with perfect comic timing.
Drawing on Tinniswood's extensive research for the book, the lecture was wide ranging in its coverage of the family's various characters from the 1750s to the 1960s, with examples of their substantial philanthropic works alongside the growing list of house purchases and renovations. The talk was held together by the refrain, 'but that wasn't big enough', which became a running joke as Tinniswood narrated how successive generations of the Guinness family acquired and extended house after house in Dublin, London, and the Irish and English countrysides. While men such as Edward Cecil Guinness, first Lord Iveagh, extended their political influence by strategically purchasing properties well located for socialising with the likes of the Viceroy in Ireland (hence the purchase of Farmleigh) or British royalty (Elveden Hall being near Sandringham) [1], daily household management and the burden of entertaining typically fell to the lady of the house. Tinniswood related that Edward Cecil's wife, Adelaide, burst into tears when presented with the deeds to yet another house in the 1870s or '80s — more work [2]. By contrast, Oonagh Guinness embraced the freedom of having her own house — Luggala, a Gothic revival castle in the Wicklow Hills — to host celebrity parties in the 1950s and '60s, with all that entailed (the work fell to her butler) [3].
The architectural styles of the many houses owned by successive Guinnesses varied considerably. Beginning with the Georgian era, examples include, amongst others, the comparatively modest Beaumont House, still standing in the hospital grounds in Dublin; 80 St Stephen's Green (aka Iveagh House), a Dublin townhouse designed by Richard Castle in the 1730s, which has served as offices for the Department of Foreign Affairs since it was given to the state by Rupert Guinness, second Earl of Iveagh in 1939; and Castletown House, the 1720s Palladian palazzo whose façade was designed by Alessandro Galilei with interiors potentially by Edward Lovett Pearce [4].
Less predictable styles include 1860s Indo-Saracenic revival interiors at Elveden Hall in Suffolk, commissioned by former owner Duleep Singh, the exiled Maharajah of the Sikh Empire; a 1930s faux medieval manor at Bailiffscourt in Sussex, compiled by an antique dealer from salvaged historic materials; Jacobethan mishmashes; skilful mid-twentieth-century imitation Georgian and Gothic interiors at Luttrellstown Castle, Co. Dublin by Felix Harbord; and several whimsical follies [5].
It was particularly appropriate that this public lecture was held at Castletown House, the subject of the final chapter of Tinniswood s book. Castletown was purchased by Desmond and Mariga Guinness in 1967 in order to preserve and open it to the public. The earliest and finest example of the Palladian style in Ireland, Castletown had fallen into dereliction but has been painstakingly restored in stages by Desmond and Mariga Guinness and the Irish Georgian Society, The Castletown Foundation, and the Office of Public Works [6].
Tinniswood brought his talk to a close by summarising prevailing attitudes to Irish country houses in the 1950s and '60s and Desmond Guinness's leading role in changing that perception and founding the conservation movement in Ireland. At a time when big houses were seen as colonial relics, fit for demolition in a modern republic, Desmond Guinness re-established the Irish Georgian Society and argued for the preservation of historic houses on the basis that they are good for the economy and tourism and worth enjoying as things of beauty — the French Revolution did not demolish Versailles, after all [7].
Of course, we are now additionally motivated by the environmental imperative to conserve and adapt built heritage. Yet the place of specific typologies within broader cultural politics and the inherent value of beauty (however subjective or demographically influenced its perception) remain important considerations.
Informative, engaging, and gently provocative, the talk was an excellent example of public history and was well received by those present. For the full story, the book is a very worthwhile read. In concluding his lecture, Tinniswood echoed his tongue-in-cheek opening, 'Guinness is good for you,' by stating, 'Ireland would be a greyer place without Desmond Guinness. And the world would be a greyer place without the Guinnesses.'
Felicity Maxwell reviews an illustrated lecture by Adrian Tinniswood, author of 'The Houses of Guinness: The Lives, Homes and Fortunes of the Great Brewing Dynasty'. The lecture took place in the Hunting Room of Castletown House, on May 9th, 2026, and was presented by the Office of Public Works (OPW) in association with The Castletown Foundation.
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In 1953 songwriter Leo Maguire suggested 'Dublin can be heaven'. On one of those golden spring evenings, when the city seems to shrug off its long hibernation, the OPW and National Library of Ireland’s Conversation Club with Noel McCauley of Duncan McCauley reinforced that sentiment. As the evening stretched generously into dusk, with pavements alive with post-work reunions and pints spilling out onto city streets, attending a lecture might have seemed an unlikely choice. In a further deterrent, a protest outside neighbouring Leinster House stalled traffic and disrupted the usual rhythm of Kildare Street. Yet despite these obstacles, inside the Joly Theatre at the National Library of Ireland those who chose to attend were richly rewarded.
Noel McCauley, architect and co-founder of Berlin-based Duncan McAuley studio, drew an audience populated not only by design professionals, but also by friends, family, former classmates, and those simply curious about architecture’s ability to tell stories. It was precisely this breadth of audience that made the lecture particularly compelling, for McCauley’s work resists disciplinary insularity. Across five projects, he presented an architectural methodology rooted less in object-making than in experience-making: one where heritage buildings become active participants in storytelling, and where architecture, exhibition design, performance, and digital media coalesce to create spatial narratives that reconnect contemporary audiences with the past. Each project showed that historic environments do not need to be static artefacts, and that cultural institutions must not be exclusive domains for the already initiated. Instead, through thoughtful intervention, they can become immersive, accessible, and emotionally resonant spaces capable of engaging a broad range of diverse visitors.
McCauley began with one of the practice’s earlier projects, Vischering Castle, where digital installations were overlaid within the historic structure to animate its medieval past. Particularly striking was the Noble Feast exhibition, where projected imagery transformed interior surfaces into theatrical backdrops of movement and shifting atmosphere. Wallpaper appeared to dance; table settings evolved before the eye, and rooms became dreamlike rather than didactic. The effect was not one of historical simulation but rather a carefully orchestrated sensory atmosphere that privileged emotion and imagination over factual reconstruction.
McCauley candidly acknowledged the tensions inherent in contemporary cultural design, particularly the increasingly familiar pressure to produce 'instagrammable' moments. Yet rather than dismissing this as superficiality, he suggested that visibility and engagement need not be architectural compromises. His discussion of mirrored cubic interventions positioned along the castle’s moat edge illustrated this. Acting simultaneously as reflective objects, interpretive devices, and undeniably photogenic installations, the cubes played upon the symbolism of water as both literal and metaphorical reflection, allowing visitors to see themselves situated within history.
Moving on, the subsequent discussion of the Brickworks Museum perhaps most clearly demonstrated the practice’s sensitivity to embodied storytelling. Here, rather than treating industrial heritage as inactive material culture, Duncan McAuley foregrounded lived experience. Former workers became narrators of their own spaces, their projected testimonies strategically embedded at the locations where labour once occurred. The museum’s circulation was conceived not as an arbitrary gallery sequencing, but as a re-enactment of the brickmaking process itself, guiding visitors spatially through the production stages.
Particularly memorable was the climactic Ring Kiln installation. Here McCauley described how visitors are handed a brick that gradually changes colour as they move deeper into the darkened chamber, visually conveying the escalating heat of the kiln without resorting to literal environmental simulation. It was an elegant example of interpretive abstraction: conveying intensity through suggestion rather than replication. The collective effect becomes even more potent as multiple visitors converge, each holding glowing bricks, transforming individual participation into a shared spatial performance.
Speaking of shared experience, throughout the lecture, McCauley repeatedly returned to the subject of accessibility, not just in the technical sense of compliance, but in the broader cultural sense of invitation. His reflections on Haus zum Cavazzen in Lindau were especially instructive in this regard. He argued persuasively that accessibility need not be perceived as a design constraint, nor as something fundamentally oppositional to heritage preservation. Instead, thoughtful design can reconcile grant requirements, regulatory obligations, historic sensitivity, and aesthetic ambition.
More significantly, McCauley framed inclusion as a question of audience diversification. How might local residents who have never entered their town museum feel genuinely welcomed? How can cultural institutions shed the aura of exclusivity that often alienates younger visitors or those without prior cultural familiarity? These are architectural questions as much as curatorial ones, and McCauley’s insistence on close collaboration between architects and exhibition designers underscored the interdisciplinary nature of successful responses.
This collaborative ethos was further exemplified in Glorious Georges, the exhibition within Hampton Court Palace’s Cupola Room. Here, historical research uncovered an anecdotal narrative of courtly misdeed, involving a gentleman seeking the attention of a young woman whom he shouldn’t, which became the basis for an atmospheric interpretive intervention. Rather than illustrating the story literally, Duncan McAuley worked with dancers, audiovisual designers, and curators to create a more suggestive spatial choreography. Architecture became both stage and storyteller, allowing visitors to imaginatively inhabit historical intrigue rather than merely consume it as information.
The evening concluded with the impressive Völklinger Hütte Water Tower Conversion, part of the UNESCO World Heritage industrial complex in Saarland. In contrast to the more intimate exhibition projects discussed earlier, this intervention operated at a larger scale with carefullychoreographed movement. McCauley described the redesign as a form of spatial dramaturgy: a promenade architecturale structured through thresholds, framed views, and sequential acts. Barrier-free circulation was central to the proposal, integrating previously disconnected levels into a continuous visitor route. Yet once again accessibility here was not treated as infrastructural obligation alone; rather, movement itself became a narrative device. The pump house acted as a prologue, with subsequent transitions unfolding like staged scenes within a larger industrial theatre.
What emerged across all five projects was a compelling architectural philosophy grounded in narrative empathy. Duncan McAuley’s work suggests that adaptive reuse is not merely about preserving fabric, but about preserving and, importantly, reactivating memory, atmosphere, and cultural accessibility. Their projects do not simply house stories; they spatialise them.
In an era when heritage architecture often oscillates between sterile conservation and over-mediated spectacle, McCauley presented a convincing third position: one where architecture acts as an interpretive framework, creating moments of wonder while remaining intellectually generous and socially inclusive. The lecture was followed by a productive discussion, surfacing questions around funding mechanisms and cultural engagement, and how such multidisciplinary practices might be fostered in Ireland’s cultural landscape.
Conversation Club: Duncan McCauley was presented by the OPW and NLI on Thursday, April 30th 2026 in the Joly Theatre of the National Library of Ireland.
Annamae Muldowney reviews Noel McCauley’s lecture on Duncan McCauley's work, part of the Conversation Club lecture series presented by the Office of Public Works in partnership with the National Library of Ireland. The lecture was held on Thursday April 30th in the Joly Theatre of the National Library of Ireland.
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The annual Critic’s Lecture of the Architectural Association of Ireland (AAI) serves as a mirror for architectural culture in the country. Since its establishment in 1896, the AAI has been one of the primary custodians of Irish architectural discourse. The guest critic – from Ireland or abroad – presents to the audience something special about the state of contemporary architecture, pointing us in new directions, or re-presenting something from the past in a new light. The lecture may at times seek to manifest the zeitgeist; while at others it may suggest a shift in established norms of thinking. It can present a moment of challenge to the community, questioning established priorities. The critic has tended to present an outside voice or foreign perspective; fundamental, as Dr. Ellen Rowley reminds us, due to the smallness of Irish architecture’s critical pool [1]. It exists in parallel to the AAI Awards, which is chaired by the same speaker, and assessed by a panel of architects and other jurors. The Critic’s Lecture is the culmination of the AAI’s busy programme of lectures by domestic and foreign practitioners. An antecedent is the AAI presidential address, phased out in the 1970s.
A successful critic might be one who is considered a provocateur, someone who invites a reaction, pushing beyond the typical passivity of a lecture audience. They navigate the space between the escapism of entertainment and the concrete reality of technical instruction. The best might even agitate or inspire a call to arms. This year, Phineas Harper, architectural writer, critic, sculptor and cultural leader, was the Critic and Chair of the Jury, addressing an audience ahead of the awards assessment. Their lecture was entitled The Architecture of Softness (or why harder, faster, and bigger isn’t better). They suggested an antidote to the ultra-processed western world: an explicit rejection of our fast food, fast fashion, fast architecture and high-carbon lifestyles. Their ‘Architecture of Softness’ sits in opposition to much of the production of contemporary western building: how it is procured and financed; what it is made of; how it looks; and perhaps most importantly, how these buildings exist within their communities.
What might an ‘Architecture of Care’ look like? Harper uses the analogy of reciprocal human relationships to re-imagine a world where individual and community have a caring – and careful - relationship with the structures that surround them. Most successful human relationships require continual, sustained care. Shouldn’t the same should be said for how we engage with our buildings: shouldn’t we pursue an ongoing relationship with the places where we live, work, and spend our leisure time? More and more, buildings are designed and built to minimise maintenance and repair. Harper champions those that actually encourage these processes. They suggest repair as a creative act; a community coming together to renew a structure; material fabric becoming ritualistic palimpsest. Here Harper develops the work of David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi in their critique of anti-time, anti-weathering buildings; suggesting a richer, deeper, more sensual architecture.
In this, time is the necessary component. Contemporary culture and contemporary production are predicated on speed. Buildings are – by their very nature – forever incomplete, contingent and ever-changing, no matter what the Modernist doctrine – and image culture – lead us to believe. Speed of construction, and buildings whose obsolescence may already be baked in, do society no favours. Harper reminds us that we are only custodians of the buildings and environment surrounding us; our moment in space and time is just that. They curate precedents that the audience will be familiar with: Lacaton & Vassal in France; Feyferlik / Fritzert in Austria; Lacol Architecture Cooperative in Spain. But it is the examples from outside the sphere of western culture that really provoke: the Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali, with its in-built structure of scaffolding that allows continual renewal of the mud brick structure; or the thatched farmhouses of Shirakawa-Go in Japan that are re-roofed every generation. Closer to home, Harper uses the example of an ordinary metal palisade fence, and the environmental; and aesthetic implications of its selection, rather than, for example, the selection of a living hedge of willow.
Harper critiques our culture of continual economic growth; especially the use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a marker of economic success. They posit the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland, and the use of confiscated Irish land to pay for the debt of the English Parliament, as an early example of the commodification of an entire country; the use of GDP as a colonial tool, translating everything into a capitalist framework. GDP continues to be the measure of, and trigger for, accelerated construction. It is a blunt tool to measure growth and its benefits to society, not allowing a proper analysis of what is actually being measured: landmine production and baby formula may be lumped in together in one finite percentage. A rising GDP tends to correlate with increasing CO2 emissions. Theories of de-growth and Doughnut Economics have been promulgated by economists and academics for many years. And like any system, economic growth has its natural limit, which may already have been reached. Our earth is a finite resource: Harper wants us to design a new economy to mirror this.
The processing of modern construction materials is not only complicated, but their use may also suppress the use of local materials, all the while increasing carbon emissions. The processes that produce concrete, steel, brick and other materials produce economic activity and increase GDP. Therefore they are rewarded. Meanwhile, more obvious solutions, such as rammed earth or thatch, remain outliers. While – at least at policy level - this should not be the case, we seem unable to challenge this. Continual repair of buildings may actually represent a better ecological outcome than the use of a material like concrete during construction. And demolition rather than re-use of building stock – in particular our social housing from the last century – is clearly unsustainable.
Designing the tools of maintenance into buildings can engender community and communal activity. A stone cairn, Harper shows us, is a collectively maintained landmark. They champion communal facilities rather than the atomisation of individuals, using the example of public wash houses that were provided in Baron Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. This is an architecture that promotes sharing and doesn’t reward hoarding of materials and of individual resources.
We might consider some of the milestones in the critique of International Modernism: the 1960s’ awakening to our ecological impact; Bernard Rudofsky’s ‘Architecture Without Architects’; ‘Critical Regionalism’ in the early 1980s; Juhani Pallasmaa’s sensory, and contingent architecture; Colin St. John Wilson’s ‘The Other Tradition of Modern Architecture’; and recent sustainable design. Harper follows in this tradition, foregrounding the nuanced interaction between individual(s) and building over time.
So what are some of the challenges? Scaling up the model is the most obvious. A culture of adversity to risk-taking (health and safety, insurance) dampens innovation. Professionalism and specialism (not necessarily of expertise) can promote the status quo. Who finances development, and who is the client are key determinants: the commissioner versus the day-to-day user, and the potential unbridgeable distance between the two.
If Ireland was once the site for one of the first experiments in capitalist commodification and GDP, it might serve us well to consider where we now sit in Harper’s world. Does the mirror they hold up show us again as an international nexus, but this time a paradigm of Harper’s ‘Architecture of Hardness’? A site of globalised construction, existing mainly as a physical manifestation of international tax policy, the flow of capital, and data? Buildings that are designed for the service and digital economy; housing that serves pension funds and REITs more than its occupants? And what will the AAI Awards reveal of this world? As a leader of architectural discourse in the country, the awards have tended to favour the special and the bespoke: cultural buildings; high-end housing and extensions; provocative individual projects; research and competitions. As Rowley tell us the ‘culture of architecture then, as nurtured by the AAI, is increasingly predicated on an intellectual, a-commercial refinement’ [2]. That is somewhat understandable, and the association is not unique in this. But the audience was clearly stimulated by the possibilities Harper conjures. Outside of the lecture theatre, we are all aware of this world of hardness; what we might sniffily consider not ‘architecture’ but only ‘building’. Harper’s challenge is to explicitly turn our face towards that world and accept its challenges. Their approach starts with neighbour and then neighbourhood, individual interactions and community activism; leaving the door open to this provocative world is the first step.
The Architectural Association of Ireland's Critic's Lecture featuring Phineas Harper was held at TCD's Robert Emmett Theatre on Thursday 16 April 2026.
Stephen Mulhall reviews the Architectural Association of Ireland's Critic's lecture 'The Architecture of Softness,' delivered by Phineas Harper on April 16th, 2026.
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