Jim Barrett, who has died at the age of 74, was a mover-and-shaker who made things happen in Limerick and Dublin while serving as city architect in both places successively, even though he hailed from Cork. And he was able to do as much as he did by winning the support of their managers while maintaining a healthy disrespect for bureaucratic norms.
Born in Cork city, he grew up in Blackrock, attending Crab Lane primary school in Ballintemple and O’Sullivan’s Quay CBS before moving on to the Crawford School of Art, where he began studying architecture. From there, he transferred to Bolton Street College of Technology, where architect and life-long friend Des McMahon remembers him as a “one-man band”.
“All of Jim Barrett’s characteristics were manifest even then – his boundless energy, enthusiasm, intellectual curiosity, wide knowledge of what was happening in architecture worldwide and his extraordinary interpersonal skills. He did not arrive single-handed – he brought Cork with him. And if you didn’t believe him, he brought you to Cork to prove the point.”
After graduating, he spent several years working as an architect in the private sector, mainly for Delaney McVeigh and Pike (now OMP), where he became a partner in 1977. Always innovative, he led a team that won an EU competition for passive solar social housing in 1981 – long before it became mainstream – and adapted the design for Carrigeen Park in Clonmel.
Tom Rice was the South Tipperary county manager then and, after he moved to Limerick as city manager in 1984, Barrett was headhunted to become senior housing architect there. Inevitably, he turned the position into de facto city architect with responsibility for urban renewal, mainly in and around King's Island, which was very run-down at the time.
Vision
He oversaw construction of BKD’s Limerick Civic Offices, backed Murray O’Laoire’s controversial modernist visitor centre at King John’s Castle, created a public park at Arthur’s Quay, pressed the Office of Public Works to renovate the city’s historic courthouse and generally pursued a singular vision that led to a transformation of the city’s relationship with the river Shannon.
Seán Ó Laoire, a former president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, recalled his “truly republican passions, manifested in his commitment to architecture as a public art, the quality of social housing, the public realm and public service, which was fused with a lust for life, hurling, traditional music, the Irish language, and a capacity to make things happen”.
It was Limerick's loss when he relocated to Dublin to take over as city architect in 1994, working closely with John Fitzgerald, the newly-appointed progressive city manager. He gave Barrett a virtual carte blanche to pursue schemes to upgrade Dublin's public realm, including the Liffey Boardwalk, the Millennium Footbridge and the Spire on O'Connell Street as well as the regeneration of Ballymun.
Smithfield acquired its tall gas braziers (no longer lit, sadly), City Hall was restored to its original plan as the Royal Exchange, and the pocket park beside it turned into a plaza with an eccentric building that almost nobody likes. All of these projects were designed by architects in private practice, with Barrett acting as master choreographer at a time when money presented no object.
An essential cog
“He became an essential cog in the management team led by John Fitzgerald and developed extremely effective strategies for the physical development of the city,” as McMahon noted.
“He encouraged cutting-edge urban interventions by then little-known but talented architects and developed vital contacts through his social skills with enlightened urban leaders throughout Europe.”
Having paved the way for high-rise buildings in Limerick, such as the Clarion Hotel, Barrett had no problem advocating similar schemes in Dublin, even when there was no planning policy basis – as in Ballsbridge, where he encouraged Danish architects Henning Larsen to add five more floors to a 32-storey glazed tower proposed for the Jurys Hotel site to “improve its slenderness ratio”.
Excited by challenging contemporary architecture as if it was gourmet food, he would say things like “It’s very tasty!” when seeking to enthuse others about the latest proposal, whatever he had in mind. He may have cut a jovial, almost Falstaffian, figure when he was holding court in the White House pub on Limerick’s O’Connell Street, but he knew how to tame the system to get things done.
Jim Barrett will be remembered, in both Dublin and Limerick, as an unconventional public servant who was always prepared to take risks. He is survived by his wife Carmel, daughter Nóra, sons Diarmuid and Séamus, grandson Dónal, and siblings Pat, Richard and Eva.