The Arts Council wants to get the public to engage with architecture more and hopes that people can be just as comfortable talking about building design as they are about films. The head of visual arts and architecture at the Arts Council, Claire Doyle, explains why - and we ask others, including architectural advisor to the council, Emmett Scanlon, what they think
Claire Doyle, head of visual arts and architecture, Arts Council
"Architecture is named as an art form in the Arts Act and it is our responsibility to drive the architecture remit on the same level as other art forms," says Claire.
"People have a good and intuitive understanding of theatre, literature and film. They have opinions on it and debate it," she says, and the one reason to get more people to engage with architecture is that "the public is crucial in the development of the built environment.We want people to feel comfortable talking about it, debating it and in stating their opinion. People will talk about a book or a film when they leave a cinema, and that runs across all types of film, not just art films. We want people to consider architecture in as natural a way as that," says Claire, pointing out that Arts Council burseries are open to architects.
The Arts Council is researching architectural initiatives around the country, to see what they can learn from them. These include "Open House" and "Sneak and Peek" days in Dublin and Cork, where people get to see inside buildings they wouldn't normally have access to, and the John Roberts architecture festival in Waterford. "We are tracking these to find out what work needs to be done."
That, she thinks, will include exhibitions, architects in residence, showing architecture at festivals and going into schools. "The Arts Council is investing in a society that feels comfortable with architecture. People often do have an opinion and every opinion is legitimate, but it may not be formalised in their own heads in terms of stating it. Our job is to encourage confidence in expressing that."
Emmett Scanlon, practising architect and architecture advisor to the Arts Council
"It is good that architecture is explicitly an art form, along with all of the art forms represented in the Arts Council," says Scanlon. "But public involvement in architecture is an underdeveloped area, and part of our role is to further the art form of architecture.
"People have a role to play in architecture being successful. Potentially, architecture is good for you - it can make you feel better or worse. It can be exhilarating and fantastic, an almost transcendental experience, but it is also pragmatic - where the windows need to work well and the rooms properly ventilated.
"Architecture is complex, running along a number of things including sustainability, planning and the environment. The risk is that the 'art form' label can make it appear remote. You can make it sound rarified and will risk it being perceived as something to be observed and appreciated - we are conscious of that. Architecture has to bridge the gap between functional and fantastic." Through his work at Cast Architecture, Scanlon sees how working well with clients improves design. "You can't make architecture alone. It is a collaborative and communicative process. Architecture is a potentially generous act."
He also doesn't want architects and the Arts Council to appear patronising. "It is not a paternalistic thing, telling people what is good about architecture. My hope is to build a knowledge that becomes endemic and intuitive. I want awareness of the construction of the environment to become part of who we are."
Mary Corcoran, professor of sociology at NUI Maynooth
"Architecture and art both have languages and it is important to make those languages accessible to a wider public. Most people will have a DIY and interior design language and know how to put together a garden. People do have an interest in their environment and in being creative and there is no reason why we couldn't take this further. We could tap into how people increasingly want to put their own imprint on a design, in a way that becomes almost a part of their identity. Although people have not to be intimidated by language."
In research she is doing at the redesigned Fatima Mansions housing in Dublin, Corcoran has found that people can engage well in design decisions. "People contributed to the new design and responded to design models. Having lived with no defensive private space it was important to them, in terms of reclaiming the estate, to get their own back yards. Some people have done really creative and beautiful things in these spaces, expressing themselves," says Corcoran, who has researched how housing estates are losing good communal spaces where children can explore, gather and play.
She thinks that architects need to respect what the public wants. "Suburban pastoralism informs people's view of places where they live, but the suburbs get such bad press and some architects are quite snobbish about it." Some of the Irish architects' proposals for rural living at the Venice Bienalle were great, she says. "They were accepting of where people are at and where they live and came up with kooky ideas and funky designs."
Paul Crowe, director for transportation and water services in Limerick County Council
"Architecture can be considered as an art form, but its primary role has to be functional. There is no point in having a building as a piece of art if it isn't fit for a purpose," says Crowe. "The client wants a building to be functional in the first aspect before concentrating on embellishment and making it attractive."
He has seen how buildings such as Limerick County Hall can help the public to engage with architecture by stimulating debate. "The county hall at Dooradoyle, designed by Bucholz McEvoy, has been recognised as being individualistic. The building incorporates many features that we would be quite proud of in the local authority, such as natural ventilation, natural light, and open-plan areas. It is important that public authorities build such buildings to show - look, there are different ways of making buildings attractive and different. It also shows that they can be very functional without having to be air conditioned. The building has stimulated debate in Limerick: some people don't like the look of it but there are others who do.
"With public art, for example, many people say they don't like it or wonder at its purpose, so it gets people to talk about art which is useful and the same can apply to buildings. People can express a view without understanding the subtleties of building in terms of design and function. When people talk about the movies they don't necessarily go into the full production values or the cinematography. People do the same with buildings and public art."
Sean O'Laoire of Murray O'Laoire Architects and president of RIAI (Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland)
"There is a saying that 'architecture is the mother of all arts' - which has become something of a cliche, but it reflects the evolution of arts through the Renaissance, when the likes of Christopher Wren and Leonardo da Vinci engaged in diverse things such as mathematics, engineering and applied art. People would have understood both Baroque music and architecture, which shared words such as 'harmony' and 'scale'. It was post-Enlightenment that architecture became more aligned with functionality.
"It is good to use the word 'art' in association with architecture because it does prompt ambition but it also tends to confuse with other things in building," he says, and yet good architecture can perhaps become art when all of a building's elements are combined well. "Even a simple building has to have a synthesis of a lot of things: whether it is beautiful is a matter of subjectivity. You have to have a belief that architecture can rise above the mundane or you wouldn't get up in the morning.
"There is also the paradox of art: what's life and what's art? Asking whether architecture is art is almost as difficult as asking: Is performance art, art? The RIAI has an exhibition by talented painter, Francis Matthews. One study of a door with the paint falling off shows the power of architecture to reflect ghosts of people. Buildings are not just shelters, they can evoke memories." O'Laoire talks of poet Derek Mahon showing how a shed in Wexford can evoke power of place, and how the collaboration between architect Jean Nouvel and film maker Werner Herzog shows that "architecture can be a narrative in the same way a film can.There is an analogy in Dublin's Italian quarter - putting that street through has given the place an almost cinematic quality."
