Landscape and Memory Memorial Museum Cillian Wright Thesis 2014
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“we do not typically go to a memorial museum because it is beautiful or novel, instead we come in respect, enthusiastic to learn a sense of history, often loaded with familial significance.� - James E. Young
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Contents: Semester 1 Forming an Idea
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The Identity of the Grid (HTC)
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Testing an Idea
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Semester 2 Applying an Idea
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Memorial Museum
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Bibliography / Acknowledgments
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Semester One Forming an Idea
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Iconographic Autobiography Six slides which outline an architectural position
1. Animated renderings
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2. Encouraging nostalgia
3. Diffusing light
5. Zenithal light
4. Expresssing structure
6. New geography
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Fig. 2
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Place
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My thesis deals with the latent potential of this neglected and forgotten landscape. I chose Parnell square as it has the potential to provide a growing city with an open public space which unifies its cultural institutions. The square today is a disappointing termination to the cities primary thoroughfare. My ambition is to offer a public city space grounded by the memory of this site. How would this proposed space awaken the hidden possibilities of the square? The Garden of Remembrance become my main area of focus as despite becoming ingrained into the history of the area but has become criticized as a stagnant destination outside of ceremonies. This presents a challenge as to what historically sensitive typology is appropriate. My interest in subterranean architecture has driven my initial site response which was to embed an new idea into the reclaimed landscape of the Parnell leisure gardens. This new geography could act as a facilitator between the park and the existing memorial by becoming the public core between these cultural destinations.
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Fold out site axonometric
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1) The Rotunda Hospital 2) Dublin City Gallery 3) Dublin City Library (proposed) 4) The Gate Theatre 5) Dublin Writers Museum 6) The Ambassador
1794 map
Transport / Parking map
Figure ground map
Overlapping shadow map
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Theme
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My theme is memory. Culture is a habit or trait that we choose to remember. Therefore, culture becomes atemporal through an element of respect. I chose this theme because of all societies need for permanent record as well as a need to make some visible symbol to express what society feels it should remember. The Garden of Remembrance which was opened in 1966 is our gesture towards honoring the past. The memorials narrative describes four era’s of Ireland’s battle for independence from 1798 - 1921. Despite the war memorials deliberate emptiness people have argued about whether it still serves its purpose or been forgotten. Perhaps a memory is best preserved through both education and reflection. As the great war enters it’s centenary this year this issue is currently recognized across Europe as many attempts have been made to install the stagnant memorials with an accompanying museum to encourage migration towards these cultural symbols. As The 1916 rising approaches it’s 100 year anniversary is our memorial fit to accommodate this celebration?
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Back of Rotunda Hospital 1890’s
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Garden of Remembrance
Queen Elizabeth II’s visiting ceremony 2011
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Redrawing Dublin
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The Molton Project was an early investigation of the Parnell Square area and its modern day “clutter”. We began the project by overlooking the work of James Malton. He was an Irish engraver and watercolourist best known for publishing “Picturesque and Descriptive View of the City of Dublin”, a series of twenty-five engravings originally published between 1792 and 1799. Malton’s coloured prints from this work, which depict many of the new public buildings erected. Inspired by Malton we were set the task of recreating our own improved shots of the surrounding area. Whilst restoring our own chosen areas we also re-visited the original shots of his paintings. This mainly involved reclaiming small areas of street-scape through the removal of parking and barriers. The second task was the removal of any unnecessary signposts or advertisements that contaminated our redrawn vision of Dublin.
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Chosen alterations
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Mountjoy Street
Gardiner Street
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Idea for Parnell Square
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Leading on from the “Redrawing Dublin” project I turned my attention towards Parnell Square. Similarly, my ambition was to reclaim an ignored landscape. The private parking to the front of the Rotunda was removed and fused with Parnell street. This teased an idea that the Rotunda could once more be used as a thoroughfare to a concealed destination. This gesture was to take the form of temporary installations. I referred to the objects as “young monoliths”. They were to remain fixed to the site but their form was never to remain permanent. Any individual or group was capable of shifting and interchanging these geometries into a different quality of space tailored for a particular type of intimate performance or gathering.
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Exploration of shifting monoliths
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Insertion of monoliths
Reclaimed landscape
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Circular insertion piece
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Square insertion piece
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History Theory Criticism The Identity of the Grid
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Aim and Focus of the Study The grid is endemic to the establishment of order in architecture. It’s clear that each grid formulates its personality through a whole range of variables. Why does this seemingly plain geometry suit certain briefs when the word random is not part of its vocabulary. This study focuses on the organisational and constraining power of “the grid” in architecture. It is known that this geometry crosses all aspirations of design regardless of scale or method. Despite the variables, a common theme can be extracted from a it’s limitless uses. The context for the research is fragmented into four perspectives in which we experience this promiscuous pattern. These include: 1. The perspective (City) 2. The vertical plane (Corbusier) 3. The roof plane (Mies) 4. The ground lane (Cemetery) These four perspectives all have a relationship with one another. What their relationship aims to describe is how no grid is anonymous in application and how every geometry has a separate identity that is appropriate to their site or typology. This identity can be traced down to a particular module or block that derives its dimensional character for a specific purpose.
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The City (perspective) The first scale of study is through the perspective of the city which is the grids most prevalent form in civilization. Through the rapid planning of our vast metropolises we have employed the grid which represents a rational solution to a variation of issues by eradicating hierarchy. Two classic references for this are New York and Chicago. Where these modern grids neutralised the environments they emerged from. 1.New York The commissioners plan of 1811 of Manhattan that displayed a complete disregard for the existing topography of the area, transforming what had been an island of hills and streams into the (somewhat) level plane facilitated by the straight lines of the layout’s streets and avenues. The commission in their own words claimed that “circles and stars” would “embellish a plan”.1 Despite this statement there are also many situations where the geometry of a city adheres to the guidelines of nature. Central Park represents the romanticised park which invades the rectilinear and rationalized crossings of the city. One represents the grid and the other represents the anti-grid. Both of these represent a juxtaposition of personalities in terms of order.2 Karl Marx famously describes the “two kingdoms of force” as the “dynamo” and the “virgin” in which “these two grid ideals exist in perpetual equilibrium, and they secrete out a landscape history which cannot be apprehended without acknowledging both.”3 In this case, the rigid plan of New York was born out a necessity due to the scale and rapid building requirements of the early nineteenth century. This planning dilemma was not dissimilar to the mass internment of graves for the rapid population increase during the industrial revolution.
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New York block map
Armelle Caron - “Unmapping the city”
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2.Chicago The frequency of Chicago’s formation has adopted a range of personalities dependant on location. Despite the implied accuracy of the ordinance grid’s mathematics, Chicago’s blocks are not entirely homogeneous. Initially when analysed the grid seems to react and fragment the further it branches from its core. Chicago’s grid is very easy to identify and read due to its irregularity. New York’s yielding grid “forces Manhattan’s builders to develop a new system of formal values, to invent strategies for the distinction of one block from another”. Chicago’s is essentially the opposite, the grid itself is manipulated in order to distinguish one place from another. Because Chicago had emerged from a territorial organisation. Each block can be identified due to the level of its subdivision with a residential block being more fractured than a commercial block.4 Therefore from the human scale you can identify value and orientate a block purely from the length and number of the secondary roads.
Alternating Chicago block forms
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Identity of the block Overall, both of these cities are related in plan; however when analysed at a human scale they obtain a different character from one block to the next. Therefore, metropolises such as New York, Chicago, L.A and San Francisco are all very different regardless of their similar organisation. There are numerous human characteristics which break the monotony of the geometry. Grids like any design, can become whatever particular societies makes them represent. When the iconic American grid is imposed it is known that a certain intensification of value arises at the intersection of streets rather than in the middle. For example in New York, tall buildings are designated to the corner, whereas the middle of the block is kept low. We find that when this pattern is repeated often enough, it loses power of designating the character of specific places and their relationship to the larger city. From this the relentless must be broken through various factors.5 Despite both cities attaining the same pattern, the size and personality of each block shall always vary depending on its immediate location within the grid and global orientation. In mainland Europe for example its observed how cities have various street widths based on the shade obtained from their proximity to the equator. It cannot be ignored how each segment of the plan will contain a society that will have its own unique language and custom; and within this each individual person will have their own unique language tailored to their own mind. Regardless of the totality of an entire society, it is still fragmented by the personalities of the individuals who create it. This can be translated into how the buildings on an anonymous block can be broken down into different typologies and from these typologies into various levels of programme.6 Therefore, the identity of the grid arises out of its own individual use. Leslie Martin suggests that “the pattern of the grid or roads in a town or region is a kind of play board that sets out the rules of the game. The rules outline the kind of game; but the players should have the opportunity to use to the full their individual skills while playing it.�7
Chicago block map
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Le Corbusier (vertical plane) The second area of study should focus on Le Corbusier. This is because of great debate between European architects at the start of the twentieth century, antagonised by Americas sprawling city plans. Most failed to identify with its relentless nature. Walter Gropius for example described it as a “modern vertical city of skyscrapers developed in spite of its own systematic plan” Le Corbusier drew heavy influence from his frequent visits during the late 1920’s. He understood the cities failure on many social levels and tried to develop an antidote for the disordered skyscraper development. However; he understood the grids possibility and used it as a reference for his Radiant City which looked toward the human elements of town planning that he felt was absent in America.8 1.Unite d’Habitation Le Corbusier utilized the playground of New York to test and promoted his own harmonious scale based off the proportions (e.g. U.N. building on the East River). This bi-lingual measurement to make a building as efficient as possible on a human scale. He describes it as “a precision instrument” which “does not make the dull subtle: it only offers them the facility of a sure measure. But out of the unlimited choice of combinations of the “Modular”, the choice is yours.9 The Modulor made a major contribution to the form of modern architecture and became the foundation stone for most design systems and modern grids. The Unite grid is far removed from the vertical and oppressive skyscrapers with no inherent order. The analysis of this case study will take a strongly diagrammatic approach to articulate the derivation of the section and elevation from the iconic modulor man.
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Modulor Man
The UnitÊ d’Habitation
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2.Venice Hospital The moving from the mesh of Manhattan to the labyrinth of Venice covers two paradigms for the contemporary city. Neither of them are bound by any geographical formation and still remain two unsolved complexities for the modernist discussion in architecture. Venice became the ideal location for Le Corbusier to explore his infinitely growing grid continuum in the form of a hospital as the city itself is a growing organism that overflows and shifts to reshape its perimeter. 10 The Hospitals expanding plan finds its identity with a square pattern that arranges into a room. Each room forms a piece of a pinwheel pattern around a central area that plugs into a matrix. By placing large importance on the modular method based on the individual rooms to the overall composition of the scheme helps relate to organic expansion. When the Venice hospital is brought to mind we immediately think of the iconic drawing of the occupant interacting in sync with both plan and section. The patient is the universal man living in an elementary cellular unit that grounds the project to a humanist scale. The occupant takes the form of the modular man in the drawings which suggests the language of the grid translates directly from plan to section. This continuity from a single grid proves that the horizontal and vertical elements are designed harmoniously. Further investigation in the thesis could link the series of courtyards and patios expressed in the section with the traversed pathways and bridges of Venice which suggests a stronger configuration with the structure of the city.
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Venice Hospital plan / section
Growing pinwheel grid plan
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Mies van der Rohe (roof plane) The third segment surrounds Mies van der Rohe. His rationale and design process was the main incentive behind this branch of study. His utilization of grids on landscapes that offer no clues or geometries in terms of context made a logical reference of choice for the planning stage of the semester one project. His name has become synonymous with pragmatic design as he manages to justify his structure within the confines of these seemingly isolated geometries. As an exile in the late 1930’s Mies began to build some of the most ambitious visions of early skyscrapers containing glass atriums which had already suggested that the transparency of a window might be extended to the transparency of an entire wall. 11As we peer through the glass of one of his most famous projects the Neue Nationalgalerie, we see another example where the carefully dimensioned roof plane reflects the drawings intention of removing any distinction between the interior and exterior of the overall site. The Planning method of the IIT campus was a second feature linked to the first semester project in how the master plan for the campus was based on a 610mm by 610mm grid that was the structural module used to locate building columns. The dimension of it was determined by room size, accommodating classrooms, drafting rooms, and laboratory work, which were the three main types of expected activity to occur on the campus. Room sizes were determined from the sizes and arrangements of desks, drafting tables, and lab benches. This in turn began as a reverse planning order and determined the direction of the growth of the campus, where the furniture determined the room size, which then added up to the building size, and together the buildings created the campus.12 In this scenario Mies speaks directly about his chosen grid identity. “Orderliness was the real reason,”
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Neu Nationalgalerie expanding site plan
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The Cemetery (ground plane) The fourth area of study links back to the early 1800’s to preach the crucial consequence of the cemetery. It relates to the transition of character from the elemental crosses of Manhattan to the organic composition of central park, as the suburban cemetery for centuries has lay in contrasted to the natural formation of the city it services. When we think of the modern cemetery we familiarize ourselves with the regimented orientation of graves as far as the eye can see. The graveyard represents the one of the oldest surviving applications of the grid on a universal level. The earliest example of a garden cemetery is Père Lachaise Cemetery located in the city of Paris which was opened in 1804. Throughout history the graveyard was the first impression as we approached our places of worship. The graveyard always held importance in society as to the common person it was seen as their book of history, their biography, their instructor in architecture and sculpture, their model of taste and important source of moral improvement. The issue with the church courtyard is that it doesn’t adhere to any systematic plan which makes it difficult to identify an individual gravestone without a democratic layout. The graveyard we know today was born out of pure necessity.13 Due to the industrial revolution and the resultant outbreaks of disease the internment of the dead in churchyards discontinued across Europe as a result of a lack of space. The large scale solution of cemetery parks were established away from populated cities (by law in many countries). In
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Identity of the Coffin The coffin is the sole identity of the graveyards geometry. Like the modular, the coffin derives its dimensions from the proportion of the occupant. The coffin is our final item of furniture tailored to facilitate our journey from chapel to grave. Another purpose of this furnishing is to facilitate our decomposition once buried. The individual grave maintains the dimension of its neighbour to maintain the order of the site and once the coffin enters its destination we become a segment of the ground plane grid. The coffin may vary from one person to the next but the grave maintains a general dimension of 1220mm wide and 2743mm long. A parallelogram emerges from this process which grows to form the nature of the site.
Jewish Memorial, Berlin
Kingston cemetery
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Jewish Memorial, Berlin Berlin’s modern interpretation of a memorial was an appropriate step in this study because of the influence Le Corbusier has had on Eisenman’s work. Peter references how the Venice hospital exposed the “constraining” and “framing” power of geometry in architecture. Early in his career his career he created the Carannaregio project which plots the same grid through the same site in an effort to articulate the void left by modernism and the rationality of his work.14 30 years later, Eisenman’s memorial to the murdered Jews in Berlin takes a pastiche approach to the grid, reminiscent of a cemetery. In this instance the design is based around a single concrete module or block of alternating heights (2.38m x 0.95m). Inspired by the grave plot it is designed to eliminate orientation through its navigation and can evoke a different response from each person who encounters it. “Just as it is open on all sides it allows many interpretations”. It is claimed to be a success in trying to deny the opticality of the grid whilst remaining bound to the earth. Peter claims that “the primary condition of this work is not what you see but what you feel.” Each pillar is made from concrete to avoid any symbolism or character which purposely allows the occupant to become lost and swallowed. 15Ironically Jewish grave sites within Prague and Poland are known for their complete disorder. The most famous reference is The Old Jewish Cemetery in the Josefov district of Prague. This has been formed through the gradual distortion of the grid as up to 12 layers of graves overlap one another which gradually changes the topography of the site.16 What Peter succeeded in recreating was a loss of identity amongst the mass of monoliths without manipulating the character of the grids geometry.17
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Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial
Jewish Memorial, Berlin
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Application of the idea. At a time when populations are bulging and common ground is becoming more and more scarce Dublin’s Parnell Square represents a forgotten resource. This project aims to awaken the past potential of the site and make the “pleasure gardens” an attraction within Dublin on an island locked by a Georgian development. To engage the idea of the grid the site is once again removed from all modern insertions to restore the original pleasure gardens that were built to facilitate the “Dublin Lying-in hospital” in 1781. The only remaining artifact to remain is The Garden of Remembrance war memorial which ironically has become a piece of history embedded in the square. The insertion of a museum to accompany the existing memorial garden provides the ideal opportunity to test this process, as this strict geometry could define new rules where context is removed. Once stripped bare,the grid is then tailored for the site. There were two areas that this geometry arose from. The first was inspired by the vertical plane of Georgian terrace windows which surround the entire area to make a 7 metre square pattern used for defining shifts in the large volumes and landscaping decisions (e.g. trees, rooflights). This was merged with a horizontal 3 metre grid based on the footfall surrounding the cross shape of the memorial. This smaller pattern was divided and applied accross the buildings plans and elevations. Therefore, both grids are flattened upon one another and used to design the landscape and the building in unison.
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Research plan The Grid is a vast subject open to limitless interpretations. The single module of the grid had to be fractured into four easily identifiable areas. The Perspective, vertical, roof and ground planes all helped delineate it’s many applications. It also introduced a coherent structure relating to the issue being researched. Overall, the identity of the grid traverses many scales of design as the research suggests. The city being the largest was essential to introduce this topic. The provoking power of New York and Chicago had universally became more evident and the proposal progressed.
3 x 3 grid from memorial footfall
Each case study described yields a particular story where the characters or architects are all products of influence. When their individual work is compared a new knowledge emerges of its universal influence and its strength as a design tool. Semester one represents my raw ambiton of this idea. I hope through testing this process I can approach the second semester with an appropriate method of design suited for the Pleasure Gardens.
7 x 7 grid from Georgian window pattern
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Matt grid plan formed from merging both geometries
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A shift in form occurs at the perimeter of a 21 metre intersection
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Semester One Project Testing an Idea
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Sketches integrating grid with landscape
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1:500 Site model
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1:500 Museum model
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Site plan
On the surface the roof pattern can be related directly back to the shifting volumes expressed in the HTC diagrams. Where a shift in programme occurs at each intersection.
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Roof Plan
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Floor Plan 1 - exhibition 2 - audio / visual 3 - interactive 4 - storage / m+e 5 - WC 6 - ceremony theatre 7 - security 8 - martyr walls 9 - children of lir statue
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N - S Section
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E - W Section
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Axonometric
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Roof detail
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Environment / Ventilation
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Exhibition space
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Audio / Visual cells
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Remembrance hall
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Martyr wall
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Semester Two Applying an Idea
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Application of the Idea 2 As stated previously the grids are flattened upon one another and used to design the landscape and the building in unison. To revisit this project in more depth I felt it every action needed a proportionate reaction as all the earth excavated for the museum must be reused to create a tectonic shift that remains constrained by the proportions of the web. These protruding plates form through the pattern laterally and will define an immediate threshold of the site.
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Applcation of the refined grid on Parnell 77
Inspired by Le Corbusiers ever expanding Venice hospital plan, all four sections to the museum form a piece of a pinwheel pattern that plugs into this central square matrix. By utilizing this modular method the building forms a growing organic expression. Using the grid as a tool the scheme is designed outward from the core where the smallest gesture ripples into a larger impact on the rest of the site.
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Pinwheel matrix of mat grid plan
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The entire site finds its identity through the formation of a 21 metre overlapping square sank into the ground. This square acts as the medium between the park and building. This creates a thoroughfare E-W and N-S route that has not been available since the creation of the garden. This proposed axis shall use the city by binding the surrounding cultural institutions with the proposed luas and metro to unite the gardens to the city. The result is a stratification of the site. An upper level which is a unifying public space and a lower level which is divided into public gardens leading to the Rotunda building.
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Fold out plan structured from 2 grids
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The fluidity of the sketch was essential to explore the theme of landscape beyond a strict margin. Along with it’s speed of delivery it easily allowed me to overlook my process. For example in mid March there was a visible change in my approach to the museum as I switched from an shifting longitudinal building to a scheme designed around a core. Along with grounding the scheme deeper in the HTC process, the square could act as the mediator between the park.
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1: 500 site test model
(March)
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I was using a variation in light intensity to delineate one space from another. Therefore I had to test these ideas through a large number of models. I graduated from card to plaster in the second semester in order to increase the scale and convey the weight of the materials.
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1:100 plaster cast of audio / visual space
1:100 of exhibition hall
(January)
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1:50 plaster cast of exhibition hall
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(February)
1:50 plaster cast of audio / visual space
1:50 plaster cast of exhibition space
(March)
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Semester Two Memorial Mueseum
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Inserting 4 stages of Irish revolution
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Hugh Lane Gallery view
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Parnell square within Dublin’s fabric
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Site plan
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Museum square / Memorial plan 1 - reception 2 - entrance staircase 3 - cloakroom 4 - WC 5 - restaurant 6 - elevator 7 - metro route 8 - metro north 9 - garden of remembrance 10 - children of lir statue 11 - rotunda hospital
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Floor plan 1 - entrance staircase 2 - exhibition hall 3 - artifact cell 4 - elevator 5 - interactive cell 6 - visual space 7 - theatre 8 - WC 9 - archive 10 - metro north
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b
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Juxtaposition with memorial 100
Fold out axonometric of site 101
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b-b
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a-a
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Core Section 106
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Relationship with “Garden of Remembrance”
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Rotunda approach to “Leisure Gardens�
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Entrance from square
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Audio / Visual space detailed section
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Exhibition room detailed section
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1:500 Site model
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1:200 Museum model
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1:200 Site model
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Bibliography 1) Robert T. and Cohen, Paul E. (1997) Manhattan in Maps, Rizzoli International Press 2) Schama, S. (1995) Landscape and Memory, New York: Knopf 3) Marx, L. (1959) “Two Kingdoms of Force”, Massachusetts Review 4) El- Khoury, R. Robbins, E. (2003) Shaping the City: Studies in History, Theory and Urban Design, Routledge 5) Sennett, R. (1992) The Conscience of The Eye, W. W. Norton Publishing Company 6) Alexander, C. (1978) A Pattern Language, OUP USA 7) Martin, L. (2000) “The Grid as Generator”, ARQ 4 8) Bacon, M. (2001) Le Corbusier In America: Travels in The land of The Timid, The MIT Press 9) Le Corbusier (2000) Modular, Birkhauser 10) Stoppani, T. (2010) Paradigm Islands: Manhattan and Venice: Disclosures on Architecture and the City Routledge 11) Sennett, R. (1992) The Conscience of The Eye, W. W. Norton Publishing Company 12) Van Der Rohe, M. (November 1952) Architectural Record, Vol 97 13) Claudius Loudon, J. (1843) On the Laying Out, Planting and Managing of Cemetries, and on the Improvement of Churchyards, Claudius Loudon, J 14) Hartoonian, G. (2006) The Crisis of the Object: The Architecture of Theatricality, Routledge 15) Eisenman, P. (2012) Peter Eisenman: Building Germany’s Holocaust Memorial [video], YouTube 16) Volavkova, H. Muneles, O. Jakobovitsch, T. (1947) The Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague 17) Saehrendt, C. (2005) “The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin”, Bulington Magazine, Admin. of the Jewish Museum of Prague
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“landscape and Memory” Memorial Museum
1:20 audio visual detail
1:20 exhibition detail
Idea The challenge of the site is through it’s lack of context where no clues are given to provide a logic or order to inform the design. My idea is how we can create context through installing a strict geometry tailored to the site. Application of Idea The installation of a museum to accompany the existing memorial garden provides the ideal opportunity to test this process, as a pattern in the form of a grid could define new rules where context is scarce. Once the land is stripped bare, this grid had to be adjusted for the area. There were two areas that this geometry arose from. The first was inspired by the vertical plane of Georgian terrace windows which surround the entire area to make a 7 metre square pattern used for landscaping and defining threshold. This was merged with a horizontal 3 metre grid based on the footfall surrounding the cross shape of the memorial. Both grids are flattened upon one another and used to design the landscape and the building in unison. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction as all earth excavated for the museum must be reused to create a tectonic shift that remains constrained by the proportions of the web.
Garden of Remembrance footfall (horizontal pattern)
Parnell Square within Dublin’s fabric
Georgian window pattern (vertical pattern)
expanding grid matrix of Venice Hospital
application of mat grid axonometric
merging grids
Neue Nationalgalerie site integration
designing outward from pinwheel geometry pinwheel geometry
Jewish memorial Berlin
New York grid plan
The entire site finds its identity through the formation of a 21 metre overlapping square sank into the ground. This square acts as the medium between the park and building. This creates a thoroughfare E-W and N-S route that has not been available since the creation of the garden. The grid will create a proposed unifying axis between the immediate context of the square and the rest of the city. This movement was inspired by Le Corbusiers ever expanding Venice hospital plan, as all four sections to the museum form a piece of a pin-wheel pattern that plugs into this central square matrix. By utilizing this molar method building forms a growing organic expression. Using the grid as a tool the scheme is designed outward from the core where each gesture becomes progressively larger to inform the surrounding landscape.
Parnell grid axonometric
developing the grid in it’s context
1:200 section b-b
1:200 section a-a
1:50 ctire sectititi
1:50 core section
Building
Place
Theme
The building is a museum to Ireland’s struggle for independence.
Parnell Square is a Georgian square with a garden built to facilitate a hospital to it’s south end in 1745. This “Leisure Garden” has since been removed. My thesis deals with the latent potential of a neglected and forgotten landscape. Parnell square can once again provide a growing city with open public space which unifies its cultural institutions. Today it is currently a disappointing termination to the cities primary thoroughfare. The proposal seeks to offer a city space, for retreat and reflection.
My theme of memory. With culture being a habit or trait that we choose to remember it becomes atemporal through an element of respect. I chose this theme because of all societies need for permanent record as well as a need to make some visible symbol to express what society feels it should remember. “The Garden of Remembrance” memorial was our gesture towards honoring the past. The memorials narrative describes four era’s of Ireland’s battle for independence. Despite the war memorials deliberate emptiness people have argued about whether it still serves its purpose or been forgotten. Perhaps a memory is best preserved through both education and reflection.
Concept The concept of the scheme is landscape and memory. It takes the form of a large geometric stone and concrete insertion which facilitates the existing “Garden of Remembrance” memorial. The memorial which was built in 1966 is dedicated to four eras of Ireland’s struggle for independence. This period covers from the “1798 Rebellion of the Society of United Irishmen” to Ireland’s independence in 1921. The proposed museum also follows this narrative. This is made evident by the subdivision of each exhibition into four areas.
Over time “The Garden of Remembrance” memorial has become ingrained into the history of the square but has become criticized as a stagnant destination outside of ceremonies. This accompanying museum will become embedded into the reclaimed landscape of the Parnell leisure gardens. It will act as a facilitator between the park and the existing memorial as both will regularly hold politically significant state events. To encourage the regeneration of this Georgian core the museum must create an E-W and N-S route that has not been available since the creation of the garden. This proposed axis shall use the city by binding the surrounding bus terminals with the proposed luas and metro to unite the gardens with the city.
Form The project is a subterranean insertion. On the surface it is viewed through a variation in roof lights penetrating and interacting with the ground plane. The building begins with a square embedded into the landscape that acts as a thoroughfare between the NS and EW axis of the parkland. The square is the medium between the museum and it’s context through allowing a visual connection with the exhibition below and providing certain facilities (e.g. restaurant) to the public. The entrance below is formed through a shift in the squares geometry. The occupant slowly descends an elongated staircase below ground. Poche is expressed by thick stone and concrete walls that help conceal low level displacement ventilation cores. Through a variation of skylights an intensity of light is used to distinguish one space from another.
As the great war enters it’s centenary this year this issue is currently recognized across Europe as many attempts have been made to install the stagnant memorials with an accompanying museum to encourage migration towards these cultural symbols. As The 1916 rising approaches it’s 100 year anniversary could a museum help our memorial accommodate this celebration of our identity as a nation? “we do not typically go to a memorial museum because it is beautiful or novel, instead we come in respect, enthusiastic to learn a sense of history, often loaded with familial significance.”
The result is a stratification of the site. An upper level which is a unifying public space for the surrounding cultural institutions and a lower level which is divided into private gardens accessed from the hospital.
Newgrange inspiration
Final presentation
arranging four spaces inspired by BIG diagrams
inserting square
creating axis through Parnell
arranging four spaces
forming subterranean layer
- James E. Young
1745 map
current buildings on Leisure Gardens”
figure ground
current shadow map
queen Elizabeth II’s visit to the garden of remembrance in 2011
1:200 fold out elevations derived by grid
narrative of memorial
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Acknowledgments 1) Art Attack 2) Grand Designs 3) Lego
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