ARCHITECTURE: Like it or not, 250 Eurocrats are moving into their new office complex in Co Meath next week. Frank McDonald, Environment Editor, recounts the saga that dogged its construction
None of them wanted to come to Ireland, let alone to a field in Co Meath. The Eurocrats in the EU Commission's Food and Veterinary Office would have much preferred to stay in Brussels and had no hesitation in saying so. They didn't want to sacrifice a cosmopolitan lifestyle for Irish stew, or anything like it.
The blame, or the credit, for bringing them here rests with Meath farmer John Bruton TD, who happened to be Taoiseach in 1996 when the spoils of decentralisation were shared out among member states. Ireland, where agriculture is still so important, managed to bag 250 vets, food scientists and assorted administrators.
As an extra perk, each of them is now entitled to purchase two new cars free of vehicle registration tax every two years.
And so, the narrow road that leads to Grange, in Co Meath, is being straightened and widened to make it easier for them to get to work at what must be the EU's most incongruously located office complex. One plus is that it's close to Dublin Airport, which means the pampered Eurocrats can hop over to Paris, Amsterdam or wherever they might have gone for a weekend break from Brussels. And to make them feel at home, the landscaping thoughtfully includes trees and shrubs which are native to their own countries.
While the planting on the perimeter is mixed Irish species, trees closer to the building include bleached limes for the French and the Germans, vertical oaks to remind the Italians of their poplars, silver birches for the Finns and the Swedes.
And everywhere, a running joke by the architects alludes to the starry, blue flag of Europe. Blue periwinkles are planted right outside the main conference room, which of course has a blue carpet. Every office - and there are lots of them, all cellular with a name-plate on each door - has a small square of stained glass in its windows. And there is a wall of blue ceramic tiles in the main courtyard, presumably for the Portuguese.
But it was still a struggle to persuade the Eurocrats to come to Ireland. At one stage, with so many obstacles being raised, the Minister for the Environment, Noel Dempsey - another Meath man - had to intervene to break the bureaucratic logjam. "They really thought they could wear us out, but we wouldn't give in," one source recalled.
Part of the problem was that the EU Commission had no track record of commissioning buildings because it usually just rents the office space it requires. There were also arguments about air-conditioning, which the Eurocrats were so used to in Brussels that they didn't realise it wasn't needed in a mild, temperate country like Ireland.
Despite all the tower cranes dotting Dublin's skyline, they even wondered whether there were competent builders to construct the complex. It was only after a lot of slogging and the preparation of no fewer than five different schemes that the Architectural Service of the Office of Public Works eventually got EU agreement.
It even had to write the entire specification for the building, which ran to 80 pages, and then had to deal with a succession of six different client representatives, all of whom wanted to make changes, even while it was under construction. Indeed, there was such a basic lack of trust that all the meetings had to be minuted in detail.
The final spanner in the works was an unsuccessful appeal to An Bord Pleanála by the partner of one EU official over an obscure point about the provision of a crèche (there is one). Any residual opposition was routed by an explanatory meeting at Fairyhouse racecourse, to which all staff of the food and veterinary office were invited.
For an organisation accustomed to profligate feather-bedding and spectacular cost over-runs, the EU must have been pleasantly surprised when its €33 million project in Co Meath was completed on time and within budget by Irish builders, Michael McNamara and Company.
Like other large buildings in the countryside, the new EU building at Grange comes as quite a shock when you first see it. Low-slung and very extensive, it reads like one of those package-deal regional technical colleges from the late-1960s, but brought into the 21st century by timber cladding and aerofoil aluminium roofs.
The 22-acre site, carved out of a 300-acre Teagasc farm, has a GAA pitch in the foreground (for hurling, believe it or not). Had the EU got its way, the site would now be surrounded by a Stalag17-style security fence, three metres high; fortunately, it didn't. But there is room in the entrance lobby for airport-like scanners, if required.
The oak cladding might have been more simply done; its varnished panels and horizontal bands of iroko appear somewhat fussy and over-designed. All of it was pre-fabricated off-site, even arriving with its nail holes pre-drilled. And with a thick layer of insulation behind, it dispensed with the need for an outer cavity wall.
According to Ciarán O'Connor, the senior OPW architect in charge of the project, what they saved on the building envelope was brought inside - to be spent on designer furniture, including Aalto sofas, Jacobsen dining-chairs and chrome-and-leather Mies armchairs. Even the loos are lavish, all with showers and hair dryers.
The entrance lobby is paved in granite and slate under a curved ceiling of slatted, untreated ash that cleverly conceals the services, with roof laterns above to capture as much light as possible. A set of bas-relief panels in hard dental plaster depicts local archaeology and lines in Irish from the Book of Leinster explaining Ogham script.
The main conference hall, where heated meetings about genetically-modified organisms are bound to take place, is claimed to be the biggest in Ireland. Had the EU got its way, it would have been a black box, like the European Hall in Dublin Castle. Instead, one whole wall is glazed, giving views out to the surrounding landscape. Measuring 25 by 12.5 metres, it is flanked on three sides by the continuous glazing of the bank of booths for translators, without whom this Tower of Babel would collapse. The acoustically-sealed booths, which offer panoramic views over the room, also had to meet stringent reverberation tests to satisfy their occupants.
The glass wall of the beech-panelled conference hall has motorised blackout blinds that can be brought down, James Bond-style, at the flick of a switch. South-facing roof lanterns, carefully designed to ensure no direct sunlight penetrates the room, can be blacked out simultaneously for screen presentations.
BOTH the main conference hall and a smaller one on the opposite side of the entrance lobby are air-conditioned. So is the bright and spacious canteen - mainly because the EU still allows staff to smoke in an eating environment - and a first-floor boardroom, which is intended to double as a bear-pit for hardball negotiating sessions. The canteen also has a curved ceiling finished in slatted, untreated ash that gives it a very Scandinavian feel. Louvres on the glazed walls are fixed at the optimum angle of 32 degrees for Irish sunlight. Polished Valentia slate - the little of it that could be got - is used to great effect for tray slides in the canteen's self-service area.
Outside, there's a bank of French lavender, some bay laurels and then beech hedges to screen the second car-park - a "green room" for un-green things. To the rear of the building, there is a staff recreational area near the boundary fence, with aromatic plants, and a walk through the Teagasc land to a mature oak copse. They will need somewhere to recreate after spending hours working in cellular offices on both sides of the endless corridors within. Nowhere is the EU's drive for standardisation, even homogenisation, more obvious. Only the Finnish director's office is different, perched like a crow's nest overlooking the main staff car-park.
Ciarán O'Connor points out that all the partitions are removable, should the multi-national staff - only 3 per cent of whom are Irish - opt for open-plan office space at some point, which seems unlikely; as it stands, the whole building could be turned into a luxury private hospital if the EU decided to move out.
In the central courtyard, with its stylised landscaping and water features, there is a bronze inscribed in Irish with a line from Tomás Ó Criomhthain: "People meet, but mountains and hills don't". It also notes, no doubt tongue in cheek, that the complex was built "as a co-operative venture between European Commission and Ireland".
Quite.
