{"id":2107,"date":"2020-09-02T12:27:48","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T11:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.ucd.ie\/magazine\/?p=2107"},"modified":"2020-09-10T11:52:40","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T10:52:40","slug":"thinking-about-space-and-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.ucd.ie\/magazine\/2020\/thinking-about-space-and-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking about space and place"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UPON MOVING OUT to Belfield in 1969 and into UCD\u2019s new Arts Building, the Dean of Commerce Professor James Meenan wrote in his diary of the peacefulness of this growing University place, just three miles outside Dublin city centre: \u201cBelfield looked enchanting and it is so heartening to think of what it will look like when the buildings are finished and the grass and shrubs and trees begin to grow. [The students] are deeply fortunate … to be young in such a place. We should produce good people indeed in future years …\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Administration Building, 1971: The bridge between the Newman and Tierney Buildings is an iconic linking structure in concrete and Perspex, emphasising Wejchert\u2019s quest for academic and human connectivity through design. Dubbed UCD\u2019s \u201cnerve centre\u201d due to its vast hall for registration, the Administration or Tierney Building is more like UCD\u2019s town hall, containing multi-functions of President\u2019s and administration offices, finance, postal and registration hub.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, in less bucolic terms, UCD\u2019s Gentle Revolution was running its course in the urban setting of the overcrowded Earlsfort Terrace buildings. And Donogh O\u2019Malley\u2019s Trinity\/UCD merger proposal of 1966 had only just been put to bed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The merger plan had been spurred on, of course, by the growing accommodation needs of these Dublin universities. By the 1960s, the Irish higher education sector had been so neglected that radical reform was required and UCD, as Ireland\u2019s largest university, was at the centre of this process. UCD\u2019s accommodation crisis had already been put under the lens through a government enquiry (1959) so that the making of a new university campus at Belfield, following the controversial decision to leave Dublin city centre, might be read as a microcosm of 1960s Ireland. It represented suburbanisation and physical change, national ambition and internationalist aspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, in 2020 and ongoing through 2021, UCD is celebrating this history with a series of events and reflections. Taking the architectural story as the central thread, Belfield 50 sets out to better understand the University\u2019s development and its culture across the 50+ years of campus design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belfield is a landscaped campus of varying architectures comprising concrete Brutalism, timber and brick contextualism as well as shiny glass and metal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong>Upper Lake View, 2018: On wetland comprising some 20,000 plants to encourage birdlife, a new upper lake landscape has developed and situated buildings for Law (Sutherland, Moloney O\u2019Beirne Architects, 2013), Business (Quinn and Moore extension, RKD, 2019) and for Chinese Studies (Confucius, Robin Lee Architecture, 2018).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Beginning with the amassing of landscaped estates in the Stillorgan area of South County Dublin, from 1933 but particularly through the 1950s, UCD\u2019s growth and history at this site has been brave and clear-sighted. First came the new Science Buildings from 1962 to 1964, which, designed by former Professor of Architecture, J V Downes, were the first modernist university buildings in the state. This structure brought pioneering scientific research facilities and was followed quickly by the 1963 international architectural competition for the University\u2019s masterplan, won by a young Polish architect, Andrzej Wejchert. The international nature of the competition pointed to UCD\u2019s outward direction. It attracted 105 designs from over 20 countries, including designs from leading experimental architects such as Shadrach Woods (Candilis-Josic-Woods) and Giancarlo de Carlo. Only one of the ten Irish submissions was premiated or commended \u2013 Stephenson Gibney Associates came fourth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrzej Wejchert\u2019s winning design proposed a low-lying unified group of modernist buildings, held to a spine or covered walkway. Ultimately, the masterplan\u2019s attraction lay in its openness to adaptation and in its elasticity and apparent flexibility. To his masterplan complex of walkway and structures for administration and the arts, law and commerce, were added a modernist restaurant and a monumental library. Both Belfield\u2019s new restaurant and library were by other architects; a key feature of Belfield was to be its many architectural signatures. Then came Wejchert\u2019s water tower and his handsome sports centre; and at the same time, about 1980, the Agriculture building, designed by Patrick Rooney, was opened, to complete phase one of Belfield\u2019s construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n