There was a house-warming party to celebrate the relocation of the Irish Architectural Archive (IAA) to its new home at 44-45 Merrion Square this week.
The house, which was originally built in 1794 for the La Touche banking family, is now home to the archive's collection, which comprises 250,000 drawings dating from 1690, a library of 15,000 papers and some 400,000 photographs.
The house's style is "monumental", said project architect Niall Parsons, who was on the Office of Public Works (OPW) restoration team. Housing the IAA in such a fine space "is a real milestone", said Brendan O'Donoghue, former director of the National Library of Ireland and former chair of the IAA. "It will be possible to have both permanent and rotating exhibitions here. It's going to do an awful lot for promoting interest and knowledge in architectural heritage, which despite the strength of the collection you couldn't really do in the other building [at number 73]."
Antoinette O'Neill, architectural specialist with the Arts Council, said the building has already acted as a catalyst for a number of events that will happen in and around Merrion Square to coincide with World Architecture Week in October. The archive's new home, opened by John O'Donoghue, the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, was refurbished by the OPW at a cost of more than €5 million.
Michael Webb, the archive chairman, Colum O'Riordan, the archive administrator, and David Griffin, the archive director, welcomed guests to the newly refurbished building. Among them were Rowena Neville, of Business2Arts; Nicholas Carolan, of the Irish Traditional Music Archive; and architects Ruairi Quinn TD, Sam Stephenson and Hugh Maguire.