Broadcaster Marian Finucane believes developers are "excessively driven by money to the point of reducing quality to unacceptable levels" in the building of office blocks and apartment buildings. There is, she feels "a regrettable amount of really bad modern architecture". So much "pretend Georgian, pretend Spanish, pretend everything, rather than a vernacular architecture" suggested a lack of confidence among Irish people where modern architecture was concerned.
Architecture was "as important as the natural environment", she said. "It is our houses, offices, factories, schools, churches . . . It is part of the process of our emerging heritage . . . I think it very, very important we develop a sense of architecture in ourselves." Ms Finucane, a qualified architect, was speaking to The Irish Times yesterday at the launch of an inter-departmental working group and three task groups on architectural policy. She will chair the group looking at policy in public education and the promotion of public awareness of architecture.
Announcing the launch of the groups, the Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, said the task groups would report back to the working group by next March, and she hoped to bring proposals to Government later next year.
The second task group will address policy on the promotion of architectural quality in publicly-funded projects. It will be chaired by Mr Klaus Unger, assistant principal architect at the Office of Public Works (OPW). The third group will look at policy on historic buildings in public ownership and will be chaired by Mr Loughlin Kealy, Professor of Architecture at University College Dublin. The inter-departmental working group will be chaired by Mr Michael O'Doherty, principal architect at the OPW.
