Brainstorming sessions should dominate Waterford bar life for the remainder of this month as the city searches for a suitable permanent project to celebrate the millennium.
The city corporation has advertised for innovative submissions from persons or groups for a major millennium project. The advertisement specifies that all suggestions will be considered, "but preference will be given to projects of a physical nature, i.e. artistic features, buildings etc."
January 30th is the closing date for submissions. But Mr Fergus Galvin, of Waterford Corporation, explains that what are being sought at this stage are conceptual, or draft ideas, the details or finished drawings for which can be filled in afterwards.
For several years now, the city council has been putting aside a modest sum annually towards the funding of such a project. Just before Christmas the corporation formed a joint sub-committee with Waterford Chamber of Commerce to look at ways in which the millennium can be marked in a permanent manner.
Various suggestions have already emerged, but the committee now wants to widen the search and encourage the development of a broad communal "think-tank" process which could spawn some entirely original and startling concept.
If a sufficiently compelling and exciting idea is born, there are hopes that it will be able to attract central funding to augment the finances available locally.
Waterford is a city with a number of striking physical features. It has a mile-long stretch of the majestic Suir river passing through the city; it has prominent hills, abundant medieval ruins and Viking remains, and several public spaces and parks with great potential.
A millennium project should ideally be something incorporating long-term benefit for the people of Waterford, Mr Galvin said. It would seem that if a sufficiently adventurous artistic project is devised, the consequent attraction for visitors would generate an economic benefit for the community.
An obvious focus for a millennium concept could be the city's quays. An outstanding public recreational amenity and permanent visual feature could be created by landscaping the entire south quays area.
Unfortunately, this concept has been more or less nipped in the bud by the recent confirmation of planning permission for Bus Eireann to construct a new central bus depot on the quays.
The search for millennium ideas can provide vast public entertainment by ignoring practical limitations and allowing the imagination to leap into areas that might normally be considered absurd or outlandish.
The whole concept of a millennium project surely includes the ignoring of preconceived notions and conventionalities, and the inclusion of the seemingly farfetched. For example, if Cork can have a river tunnel, why not Waterford? And why not combine such a feature with an underground bus park?
The long-sought second river crossing for Waterford, it has been assumed, will be a second bridge to the north of the existing Rice Bridge. Indeed, this project is already in the pre-planning stage, though it is not expected to begin until well into the new millennium. This second bridge itself could provide the subject for some novel and daring design embellishment to mark the millennium.
The Harbour Authority, for example, has already expressed a desire to extend the riverside parking area out into the Suir. Why not, some might suggest, go the whole hog and cover in a decent stretch of the river completely, thus creating ample carparking space and a ready-made new river crossing in one fell swoop?
Even more outrageously, some bar-stool design experts are eyeing Jury's Hotel, set on an imposing height overlooking the city from the Ferrybank side of the river. Why not, they hazard, consider a cable car from Jury's to the city centre. A bungee-jumping platform could be incorporated at mid-river level.
Nothing should be sacred and everything should be open to imaginative treatment in the hunt for a millennium project. The famous Reginald's Tower, for example, could be extended upwards by 10 storeys or more, with a helicopter platform and laser spotlight display mounted on top and a commercial rock-climbing training course on its flank.
There are some, too, who consider that a contemporary Great Wall could be built along one side of the Suir, both as a tourist attraction and as a practical means of keeping the northern hordes at bay. The little St John's river, which meanders through the city, could be covered in by a glass or plastic tunnel and converted into a public water-sports course for canoeing and paddle boats or pedalos.
There is a huge design challenge in the unsightly conglomeration of high-tension cables crossing the Suir north of Rice Bridge, and in their associated pylons and steel towers. Can anybody come up with a practical and pleasing method of landscaping such industrial features? A suitable idea would certainly be seized upon by hundreds of communities elsewhere whose visual landscape is degraded and offended by cables and antennae.
The powerful daily tidal flow of the Suir is crying out to be harnessed. Is there an engineer with the vision to design a modest floating water-powered generating station, which could at least operate the city's public lighting system as well as floodlights and traffic lights?
On a less ambitious level, perhaps, the 140-year-old People's Park is long overdue for imaginative treatment and upgrading. Would a millennium zoo or multi-media Jurassic Park facility be appropriate?
These preliminary ideas are advanced, gratis, simply to demonstrate the limitless range of the possibilities that arise once the imagination is unleashed.
Inventors, artists and designers, with their feet on the ground or otherwise, are invited to submit their ideas to the Secretary, Waterford Millennium Committee, c/o Waterford Corporation, City Hall, Waterford.