O’Donnell + Tuomey gave a stellar presentation at in:situ and I was bestowed the honor of a brief-but-informal conversation with practice instigators, directors and partners in the sublime, Sheila and John.
The
pair are the recipients of a recent Royal Institute of British Architects Gold
Medal, an award that is not just given for one project but a body of work – an
‘accumulation’ – where the sum of each individual project creates a whole of
greater value, represented eloquently in the practice-generated hybrid drawing
‘composite functions, compatible plans connected’, seen in Space for
Architecture: the Work of O’Donnell+Tuomey, the firm’s recently published
monograph.
Each
project is an opportunity for the practice to explore ideas across project
scale and typology, to render them at different scales and levels of
resolution. It is as if the practice is consumed by one continuous project,
creating space for architecture “when there is never enough time.”
‘Space
for Architecture’ was also the title of their conference presentation,
elaborated on by the pair as “a slow, continuous and un-folding business. On
the one hand, architecture isn’t clearly defined – it has its own rules and its
inherent logic – but it’s so complex and is so much a part of life and living
that it’s influenced by and accommodates and maybe even contains many other
aspects of human creativity and ingenuity. We think it extends beyond itself in
a number of ways.”
These
intelligent and considered conversationalists speak with a slight musicality,
as is the Dublin tradition. Tuomey is provoking in his lyrical tone: “Even if
architecture didn’t exist, there still would be architecture as an area of
study.”
The
couple’s practice of 25 years is a rags to riches story of sorts.
Determination, passion, talent, a little bit of luck – as are all success
stories – hard work and, in the end, there is no mincing words when these two
place a building on site.
“When
we came back to Dublin after five or six years (of education) in London, we
thought we might build small-scale, socially-useful civic buildings in Irish
towns,” says O’Donnell. But “as we left London, a good friend told us
half-jokingly, ‘Go back and change the face of Irish architecture’ and we,
half-jokingly, had, out of this, a kind-of idealistic dream. We were inspired
by the idea that architecture could have a role in defining society and we came
back to Ireland to find ourselves in a society undergoing great cultural and
social change.”
Their
youth-fuelled mission to rediscover Irish architecture and, by extension, a
quest for post-colonial architectural identity is explained: “On consideration,
when you go in search of something, it is often not the focus of your search
that you find but something else… In the end, that search, we realised,
perhaps, not an architecture of Ireland but an architecture of place not style.
A way of thinking about architecture and place.”
O’Donnell+Tuomey’s
architecture isn’t interested in a style nor, perhaps, does it claim to be of
any nation. It is a process that discovers a place through rigorous
investigation – “close noticing”, that focuses the essence of place, an
attention on specifics, of site – be it a view or an urban or social or
environmental condition. A result of immersion and analysis. “In that sense,
the conference theme of in:situ is vital to our practice,” they state. A site
becomes more about itself after an intervention than before, through an
uncovering or discovering and revealing of what was there all along, as if
through lifting a veil an architecture is quietly revealed.
When
the couple arrived in Dublin, it was economically depressed wth no building
happening, so their attention was focused on how they might contribute to the
positive development of their city. “It was unpaid work, we were teaching and
making proposals about the city. Political activism and interactions in that
community lead us to our first clients,” they explain. “There was no work
for young architects but there was plenty to think about... While we were busy
redesigning the city...we learned to think strategically and experientially at
the same time. We realised that a house needs an urban strategy and a city
block needs intimate space. But you have to make the work you believe in and
you have to stick with it.”
Toumey
explains that they would like to see more relevance brought back to the
profession, explaining their version of a future perfect: “I would like
architects to be like the doctor who announces his presence when a crowd is
gathered around an injured person. I want people to be genuinely relieved when
a crowd gathers to discuss a design issue and someone announces they are an
architect.”
