Grafton Architects Lecture

Vicent Ducatez

When the news spread 18 months ago that Grafton Architects had won a competition for a 45,000 sqm university building in Milan, it was greeted with universal cheers amongst the community of Irish Architects. The general happy feeling was not dissimilar to some extra-ordinary sporting achievement but this was not a freak event. This was the validation of continuous efforts by a group of architects at the heart of a truly original Irish Architecture to finally test their art at another scale.

This project, known mainly through a few images of exquisite model sections through the main room, the Aula Magna, was the object of the recent lecture by Grafton Architects to the AAI. Upon recalling the narrative of the lecture, it became clear that the process of reviewing the event was intrinsically linked with the process of reviewing the work and the place it occupies in Irish Architecture.

The last lecture given to the AAI by Grafton Architects dates from late 1999 to coincide with their exhibition at the RIAI celebrating their 20 years in practice. Despite this gap of 5 years, one feels familiar with the work and the evolution of different techniques at play. This is certainly due to the constant critical exposure through publications, awards and building visits. But it goes further and this exposure is also reciprocal and informal, with a readiness and openness on the part of the Grafton Architects to discuss their works and others'.

The lecture was clearly divided in two distinct chapters. The first was a narrative of parts, examining the relationships between past projects through thematic sieves, with the second part as a promenade through the Bocconi building, zooming in and out of the context, spatial organisation and the development of the project.

Similar to some coincidental planetary alignment, the lecture by Grafton Architects took place between Robbrecht and Daem on one side and Burkhalter & Sumi on the other. If these architects are each operating in their own version of western civilisation, pursuing their own goals, we were invited to reflect on similar themes: strong emotional spaces born out a rigorous use of material and energy, grounded in a concern for typology, with poetic techniques of massing and layering.

Grafton Architects' buildings are often characterised by almost direct solutions, and a sense of monumental, or civic dignity, that, in an apparent paradox, one feels at ease with. These solutions are often simple, but not simplistic, resulting from a long process of working, re-working, editing, characterised by clear orthogonal plans and a crafted assembly of planes and cubic volumes. The palette gets richer in increments with each project forming a new conceptual distillate: clear abstract massing defying the relatively small scale of the project and acknowledging its larger context (Trinity College), the layering of the fa�ade to screen the inevitable domestic scale (Denzille Lane), a heavy concrete canopy forming threshold, again blurring the scale (Celbridge), a collage of material as a counterpoint to the monumental (North King Street). Perhaps nowhere more than in the Dunshaughlin Civic Offices, these concepts are better articulated with a humble brief made into a building of civic importance. As another argument, it is revealing in Trinity how the scale of ordinary objects - a radiator, a desk - contradicts at close range the dense pattern of glazing bars that accentuates the scale of the building. In all these projects, the issue and manipulation of scale - and more precisely the scaling-up - are prevalent.

The lecture offered Grafton Architects an opportunity to present other themes of increasing importance. While the exploration of structure started from a purely plastic approach in the bridges and the pillars at Trinity, the role and potential for structural rigour is clearly established in the Urban Institute. Here, the structural rationalization, rotated pillars of ordinary concrete blocks supporting exposed pre-cast planks, is born out of the necessity of the budget. This exploration of low cost solutions, tested differently in de Blacam and Meagher's library in Cork, becomes the starting point for the making of a strong communal space, offering spatial possibilities beyond the expediencies of the brief. This interest in the potential of structure, in terms of economy but mainly in terms of plasticity, is not different from the manipulation of scale. As demonstrated by the projects presented, a fire station in Drogheda and a school in Ballinasloe, structure and construction techniques serve similar purposes. In Drogheda, the need for a large free span hall is the generator of the project. The firemen's quarters are contained in a concrete bridge that stretches and compresses the void of the machine hall below, reaching the civic scale through the heroic. In Ballinasloe, instead of the usual light roof construction, the roof of the school is made of exposed pre-cast planks simply raised to create interwoven roof-lights in a manner similar to the Urban Institute. However in this case the project moves in an unexpected direction with the carving of a mineral mass - even the roofs are covered in concrete paviors. One could think of the rays of light filtering through the heavy roof of the built cave that forms the baths at Vals by Zumthor.

On the subject of environmental architecture, the position of Grafton Architects is not to over-demonstrate but to add layers of understanding to the making of the building. In a very similar way the structure is used to strengthen the architectural intention. In Dunshaughlin, this approach is explicit. The double height space, needed for air movement, gives the inner scale to the building and allows the low winter sun to bounce on the exposed concrete soffit, itself chosen to reinforce the spatial concept. In Le Corbusier's post war buildings, similar concerns are at play: robust structure set against ordinary materials, simple and efficient environmental controls, and the constant changes of scale of the human being and the greater order.

References to Le Corbusier's work are clearly established (ref. to Grafton Architect's profile by Gandon Editions) not as a mannerist short hand but to reveal the extent of architectural knowledge and shared dialogue that surround the projects. Their method of working was a strong sub-text of the lecture, with the explicit discussion of the inter-relationships of projects but also with acknowledgement to individuals involved. In a similar way, the legendary daily coffee-break's discussions, where projects are reviewed for their architectural and intellectual principles, is exemplary of the collegiate nature of the process.

In Milan, Grafton Architects reached a new scale, unprecedented but latent in their work: a complex of offices, libraries, student facilities, lecture rooms and an Aula Magna forming one edge of the private Bocconi University, in a disparate urban fabric. The project forms a new entrance as it serves as a meeting point of students, teachers, research, lectures and the general public. The site, a narrow strip facing a busy street on the small edge and a block of apartments along its length, dictated a compact and tall volume punctuated by light shafts. The strategy retained is simple and efficient. The Aula Magna creates the new face of the University on the street. The remaining lecture halls are grouped in a deep basement, the offices are suspended overhead and the student's forum occupies the interstitial world at ground floor, peeping up or down to the depth of the built mass. Finally, the libraries, specific to each department, are stacked almost randomly in a narrow sliver, forming a gigantic prismatic bas-relief to the apartment block.

Against this daunting scale, Grafton Architects presented different elements, exploring the intrinsic materiality of the architectural intents through a series of beautiful drawings, revealing the ease, logic and joy that seem to prevail.

Lina Bobardi's Sao Paolo Museum provided the clue for the structural solution. A series of parallel sheer concrete walls are erected across the site. From them, the office floors are suspended, forming a tartan grid where solids and voids alternate playfully, hovering above the ground. A visit to an Italian stone quarry was another revealing moment, where the stone is carved out of the mountain in a series of rooms. The resulting maze of travertine voids, punctuated by light shafts, with varying ground and roofscape, were seen as the full scale model of the interstitial world of the project. The Aula Magna is obviously the real piece de resistance. The complex shapes with one tier overlooking the other, the daylight punctuating the auditorium, the richly textured walls made of precast concrete elements bode well for a truly beautiful space. It is interesting to note that two distinct approaches are concurrent in today's Architecture. One would tend to see the building as a process that creates an open framework for changes. The other, of which Grafton Architects are clearly part, would tend to create a strong but informed architectural space that will survive and dictate the shape of flexible requirements.

During the lecture, Yvonne Farrell reported comments made by Dr John Yarwood, the newly appointed Director of the Urban Institute. He expressed his awe as to how much was achieved with so little money. However he viewed the paucity of budget as a clear indication of the place of architecture in Irish Society. These comments were not reported for self-congratulation but to remind the audience of the fragile state in which Irish Architecture exists. One would fear that, by these constant limitations, Irish architecture would tend to self-censorship and mere survival strategies. But this leads to a distilled and ethical sense of permanence and seriousness, away from the excessive and the gratuitous. It is then revealing that this calm but firm architecture is accepted in Europe as a serious alternative. We could also extend Dr John Yarwood's comment and reflect on the lack of opportunity offered here when some of the most interesting protagonists, De Blacam & Meagher, O'Donnell & Tuomey, Grafton Architects, are now regularly invited to work on large projects abroad. In her opening statement, Shelley McNamara read an extract from Ruskin. Ruskin was comparing the perfection of modern glass produced by the industrialised English worker to the whimsical glass produced by Venetian craftsmen. He concluded by stating that "You cannot have the finish and the varied form too � Choose whether you will pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose at the same moment whether you will make the worker a man or a grindstone."