The Architecture at the Edge Festival will take place in Galway and Mayo this weekend. The festival, designed to help citizens understand the many ways architecture impacts our lives, will feature a weekend of online lectures, interviews, exhibitions, and panel discussions - all live and all free.
For the past three years, Architecture at the Edge has hosted the AATE festival celebrating the west of Ireland’s built landscape by showcasing the architecture of Galway and Mayo. In response to Covid-19, this year’s festival will include an expanded programme of online events.
The theme for this year’s festival will be 'Boundaries'. AATE invites pariticipants to reflect on the nature of thresholds, boundaries, and borders at every scale, from the street edge to the geopolitical, from the manifest to the unstated.
"To live in the west of Ireland is to be surrounded by boundaries: hedgerows, stone walls, the coastline of the sea and the edge of our town or settlement," said AATE director Frank Monahan. "Look around and everywhere you will see the architectural signals that define people past and present, their place in society, and the distribution of property. From the ferocious O'Flahertys, Good Lord deliver us – the legendary inscription once read at one of Galway’s c1500 city gates, to the belfry at St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church which then led to coining the saying that they 'couldn’t even give them the time of day', we have always used architecture to express our love of a good boundary.
“Boundaries define us: they put us in our place," he added. "And boundaries are fundamental to any discussion about Ireland’s future. To what extent does the National Framework Plan define what our country could and should look like by 2040? Do the mental and physical boundaries of Dublin versus the rural still apply?"
With Dublin’s sweeping economic effect felt across the country the festival talks will explore topics such as ‘Is Project 2040 fit for purpose post Covid? Guest speakers will include John Concannon, vice president NUI Galway, John Moran, chair LDA, Elaine Brick, regional director at AECOM, and Tomás Ó Síocháin, CEO Western Development Commission.
Chaired by Carol Tallon, CEO Property District, this multidisciplinary panel will discuss and debate the long term strategic plan for Ireland, with a particular focus on Galway city and county and the wider western region. The panel will also share insights and trends that emerged while navigating the pandemic restrictions, and what the longer term impacts are likely to be on critical societal issues from housing and transport, through to culture and the creation of a truly livable city.
We have been moving towards more people-centred design for some time, notably in the form of green cities that seek to reduce emissions and promote sustainability. Covid-19 is likely to accelerate this trend. AATE 2020 invited architects and artists to respond to the context of the recent debate around public space via the Boundaries Commission, a project which aims to create a series of spatial or site specific interventions in the west of Ireland.
The Air We Breathe – Sites of Sympoiesis is a commissioned project (temporary sculptural intervention on Grattan Beach, film screening, film workshops ) by artists Paula McCloskey and Sam Vardy, that explores the idea that the air we breathe might suggest a public realm that resists regulation, control, and defined boundaries that inscribe inequalities, but rather is a sympoiesis, of making-with, or co-production, as described by US academic Donna Haraway.
An online talk explores some of the ideas of this project with Paula McCloskey and Sam Vardy in conversation with Dr Clare Noone of the Centre for Climate & Air Pollution Studies, NUI Galway, and Liz Coleman, NUI Galway School of Physics.
Another online talk will see Amy Lily Keogh, director Design POP Cork, and chef, restaurateur, and author JP McMahon discuss redesigning our public spaces to strike a balance between community and safety for a post-pandemic world.
Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, co-founders of Grafton Architects and the first all-woman pair to be awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, will feature in an event hosted by Martina Murphy, associate head of school, Belfast School of Architecture, along with other leading and emerging women working in architecture and construction to discuss their experience of working in the field.
We Can Build Better is an independent voluntary group of architects, engineers, and other construction professionals campaigning for positive changes to how we build in Ireland, focusing on the quality of the publicly funded buildings and places we are making today. During AATE the group will highlight issues with how the State procures its buildings, and how the State is missing key opportunities to raise the quality of life for its citizens.
Panelists include Louise Cotter, Carr Cotter Naessens Architects, Michael Pike, GKMP, and Orla Hegarty, Assistant Professor at School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, UCD. Hosted by Niall Maxwell, the event will take place on Friday evening October 2.
The conversation is designed to set the scene for a summer school or design/build project in Galway for AATE 2021. It will be streamed live online with a chat facility open on Zoom in order to encourage a broad audience participation. It will be then available to view online as part of a series of conversations relating to the topic, which will be hosted during the autumn.
AATE online will also feature a presentation of Fiume Fantastika: Phenomena of the City an exhibition held as part of the Rijeka 2020 European Capital of Culture project. Based on recent research by DeltaLab - Centre for Urban Transition, Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Rijeka, the exhibition follows the last 150 years of Rijeka’s urban history.
Other highlights include a debate on plans for the new city district on a c20 acre site at Sandy Road. The LDA commissioned the RIAI in January 2020 to carry out a design review for the site. Five RIAI registered architects have put forward different proposals and visions for the site.
Historian and author Peter Leary and architect Aisling Rusk will discuss their research on borders and their transgressions through spatial practice and illicit activities. They will share a collection of spatial stories from the divided contexts of Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine.
In Mayo, the Ballinglen Collection, housed in the recently opened Ballinglen Museum of Art, will host the Without Boundaries exhibition focusing on the nature of place. In Ballinrobe, 6 at Walsh's Shop is a selection of photographs taken by Hugh Doran when he visited Robe Villa 40 years ago.
In Galway, Self Isolation Portraits will feature works by Emilija Jefremovas projected onto walls at Seapoint Ballroom and the West End. These portraits were taken in March when the city was in lockdown. The purpose of this project was to show how communities are made up of individuals who support each other in difficult times.
Architecture at the Edge is supported by the Arts Council Ireland, Galway County Council, Mayo County Council, Galway City Council and the RIAI (The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland ). All events will take place from tomorrow, Friday, until Sunday October 4. For more information see www.architectureattheedge.com
