Our vision for the building which will house the National Theatre for the 21st century is one which will deliver comfortable, acoustically acceptable auditoriums and state-of-the-art stages and technical facilities.
We want to be able to present large-scale epic work alongside more intimate drama and, through the operation of side and rear stages, have the capacity to show more than one production in the same week. This will enable us to present a wider choice and maximise our audience at peak times.
Our vision involves the provision of public facilities which would include commercially run restaurants and a bookshop, foyer platform performance spaces, an education facility, and archive and exhibition spaces.
All this would help context ualise the work of the National Theatre. Crucially these civic spaces would encourage the public to use the building during the day as well as in the evening; help demystify the business of theatre and allow people access to and interaction with their National Theatre.
With the exception of administrative facilities, almost everything a theatre needs should be below the ground floor, at ground-floor level or on the first floor. Depth and width are crucial. But you do not need to be an architectural genius to know that if you rely on height and the placement of core activities in the upper reaches of a building then the movement of a large number of people over a short space of time requires a disproportionate number of stairs and lifts.
The Grand Canal Dock site at Macken Street (or at Misery Hill if you want to be playfully pejorative) has the width and depth to deliver the building the Abbey needs. At the time of writing the Office of Public Works report - which we have been told takes a contrary view - is not yet available for our inspection but there is a nice irony in the suggestion that a site three times the size of the Abbey Street site is not big enough. What does that say about our current arrangements?
When you consider that the proposed arts/culture building at Grand Canal Quay will front a large public plaza which will itself give onto an impressive stretch of water at Charlotte Quay; that Pearse Street, the new Macken Street bridge, the DART station at Barrow Street and the extension of the Luas will give ready access to the area; that the site would be provided free; that the land would be remediated and ready for building on by this summer; that a fast-track planning process is in place and that all this would obviate a lengthy and expensive closure for the existing Abbey, then the arguments for relocation are compelling.
However, being mindful of the historical associations of the Abbey Street site and the plans for the regeneration of the O'Connell Street area, the National Theatre would want to ensure its current premises was retained for cultural usage.
The need for a 400-seat, centre city receiving house for dance, theatre and chamber opera is demonstrable and this, combined with a rooftop restaurant and a basement theatre archive/museum would create a vibrant mix of cultural and leisure activity. The space might be deconstructed and the original frontage of the old Abbey (which languishes in the Dalkey garden of Daithi Hanley) might be re-erected, giving Dublin its own version of the Bouffes du Nord in Paris.
This is certainly not what we spoke to the Taoiseach about last March. Then, we talked up a much more limited option because we believed it was the best that could be achieved in the circumstances. When other possibilities presented themselves we felt it was our responsibility to assess them with great care. We concluded that, should funding be available, our future lay at Grand Canal Harbour.
This was not a U-turn. I would describe it more like coming out of a dark narrow bend into a bright vista that stretches towards the horizon. The footprint of the current Abbey is woefully inadequate and development in a vertical direction is inappropriate for a theatre. On that, at least, commentators and stakeholders now seem to agree.
The clock ticks at the DDDA; it ticks in the fast-deteriorating bunker in Abbey Street; it ticks towards the Abbey centenary in 2004. We believe this issue is of the utmost importance not just to the theatre and its public but to the city and the nation.