2nd Year
I spoke to Donal, who is the head of the second year architecture studio and who runs his own practice, Donal Hickey Architects.
Is Irish light very different from other places? e.g. flatter, grayer etc. Light is always geometrically predictable. The timing angle and incidents of light are completely geometrically predictable relative to any point on the surface of the globe. It will always be different from one place to another. What complicates this further is the effects of topography and place on weather, which is not [seemingly] predictable. The further north [and south] we travel from the equator the greater the span of daylight from summer to winter.
Ireland as a result of its position on the edge of Europe, its particular topography and landscape has light which gives great scope when considering the design of spaces. Delightful.
What is your favourite Irish building with regard to light (not your own)? The main living room in Ian Lumley’s house on Henrietta Street. The plan of the room is a virtual square, a near cubic volume. Often the experience can be fixed to a particular time and event. In the case of Henrietta Street it was a meeting or a dinner, my memory of the event itself is very hazy. The light however was by candlelight, early evening, at dusk, when the sky is super blue and nearly dark. The sun is below the horizon but it is still light. Up the stairs space appearing from the darkness as the light moves up to a room dimly light by the blue light of the evening and the warm flickering light of candles. Electric light and candle light as Turell would claim are as valid a light source as sunlight or dim moonlight. Electric light is often very crude. The copper spun shade of Clancy Moore's table and floor lamp understands how the harsh light can be tembered by the shade - very nice.
City Hall which so elegantly looks in three directions east north and west. The extravagance of one room. My best memories are of rooms and the light they choreograph rather than whole buildings. Favourite means one is somehow better than another - I am greedy like a kind of magpie - collecting beautiful light, recording it in the hope that it can be reconfigured to influence the experience of a future room or space.
What is the best thing about teaching second years? Second years have not yet been corrupted by their teachers and few have established a position. It is the year you acquire the basic skills to learn to become an architect or learn to fake-it. Few of the teachers who taught me when I was in second year in DIT cared a jot about architecture. That has changed dramatically. I teach with a brilliant group of architects/teachers who are all passionate about architecture. This creates a challenging environment where you have to be on your game - teacher and pupil. Often the roles reverse which is the beauty of education.
How was the class trip to Turkey? The commitment to the class trip was astounding. A huge proportion of the students traveled together with most of the staff. Istanbul now constitutes a common ground of sorts. The experience of ottoman bathing was fantastic, a culture of bathing which is unbroken from antiquity. When considering the trip and Istanbul, Aldo Van Eyck's statement in 1982 rings true.
'It cannot have been so very different in Ur 5000 years ago: the same laboriously fashioned bricks… the same spaces around a courtyard; the same sudden transition from light to darkness; the same coolness after heat; the same starry nights; the same fears, perhaps; the same sleep.'
The Mosques were fantastic, as were the bathhouses/hamam. My high light was the entry sequence into the Hagia Sofia such beauty from an incongruous object. In the contemporary search for novelty the genetic spatial code of cities like Istanbul, their architecture based on thousands of years of testing and perfection are often overlooked. The experiences of such a place cannot but change us."
Are there any external influences that affect your designs? e.g. furniture design, sculpture, music etc. I'm not sure there were ever any internal influences - I mean we don't have an 'architecture gene' so therefore all influences have been external first and then reconstituted based on how we understand the world. It is sometimes instinctive and the result of serious labour. Often we benchmark our ideas against things we know to validate them and make sense of the work.
We are influenced by so many things - everything we download from the world. The work results from this confused bibliography of our lives and experiences. The best work grows out of itself and can be understood in its own terms.
People and friendships [of the architectural sort] are very influential as is the work of colleagues. Janek Ozmin was my most recent collaborator who is now in Sweden. Skype is great we still discuss architecture and rely on each other as sounding boards. Class trips have been really important. I teach and have the opportunity to discuss architecture within an amazing environment - Architectural education - both in DIT and other schools. This environment has had a profound influence.
I am sure that there are many particularly obvious references in the small amount built work. When something is built nothing can be hidden its in the world and exposed for what it is. Most projects take so long to complete that your head is somewhere else when they are built. This reality completes the thinking of an earlier time. Its great to let go of certain ideas - it allows new ones to begin.
Building allows for the possibility of a certain fluency this is probably the most important influence on future thinking and work.
It is interesting that Donal compares our influences to a complicated disorganised bibliography, and therefore features might emerge in our designs that are not immediately obvious to us.
It is also fascinating to think that something which is so interesting and in fashion in terms of ideas or influences might become boring, defunct or fall from grace soon after a project is finished. In this way the longevity of an idea is very important, architects must strive to steer clear of fads or trends towards a more long lasting architecture.
This should not hinder progress but should encourage investigation into solid, sustainable and interesting ideas that will delight us in years to come.
Georgina Vernon