The Italo-Irish Literature Exchange holds its first event in Bologna. Poets and writers from Ireland will meet the Italian poets from Gruppo 77.
Readings in English, Italian, Gaelic and dialect are followed by a discussion on the musicality of language and the role of poetry in society.

The last event in the National Tour of the Ireland at Venice 2012 exhibition will open in Cork on Friday September 20th 2013.

Shifting Ground – Beyond National Architecture

THE NATIONAL SCULPTURE FACTORY

Albert Road, Cork City, Cork

Exhibition opening on CULTURE NIGHT 2013, Friday September 20th at 5pm.

The exhibition is open from Friday September 20th to Friday September 27th.

Opening Hours

September 20 – Culture Night, 5 to 8.30 pm
September 21 – 12noon to 4pm
September 23 to 27 – 12 noon to 4pm
www.nationalsculpturefactory.com

Pictured at the opening of Galway Arts Festival’s ABSOLUT Festival Gallery are L-R: Visual artists Róisín Coyle, Pat Collins, Elizabeth Francis, Richard Gilligan, John Crumlish, Chief Executive of Galway Arts Festival, Elizabeth Sheehan, Marketing Manager of ABSOLUT, Paul Fahy, Galway Arts Festival Artistic Director and Eugene Downes. Photo: Colm Hogan.

Ireland at Venice exhibition at the Galway Arts Festival in July 2013.

The show included the Irish exhibits at 2012 Venice Biennale “COMMON GROUND”.

Pavilion of Ireland 2012 “SHIFTING GROUND – Beyond National Architecture”

Grafton Architects’ “Architecture as New Geography” winner of the Silver Lion award

O’Donnell and Tuomey Architects  - “Vessel”

DATES: Monday JULY 15^th to Sunday July 28^th 2013.

Exhibition opening Sunday July 14^th 2013

VENUE: ABSOLUT FRINGE GALLERY, Headford Road, Galway

Galway Arts Festival 2013

The exhibition celebrating the return of Ireland’s representation at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 opened on Friday May 10th in Dublin’s CHQ Building in the Docklands.

The national representation features the work of heneghan peng architects, while the exhibition also features two other architecture firms that exhibited in the Biennale. Grafton Architects and O’Donnell & Tuomey Architects were invited to participate in the Biennale by the Artistic Director, internationally renowned architect David Chipperfield. The former won the prestigious Silver Lion Award at the Biennale.

Shifting Ground – Beyond National Architecture: For the Irish Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition – Shifting Ground. In a site specific response, heneghan peng architects designed an oscillating ‘bench’ that invites visitors to balance their respective weights. The work considers issues of geometry and number in the architects’ work, while the level of the ‘bench’ was measured from the mark of the acqua alta (water line) on the old brickwork of the Arsenale building in Venice.

Grafton Architects were awarded the Silver Lion for their exhibition ‘Architecture as New Geography’. The exhibit explores themes of ‘architecture as new geography’ and ‘abstracted landscape’, focussing on two structures by two different architectural practices, forming a sense of ‘Common Ground’. The two structures are, the Brazilian architect Mendes daRocha’s Serra Dourada Stadium in Goiania, Brazil and Grafton Architects’ university campus in Lima.

O’Donnell and Tuomey Architects invited practitioners to contribute to their installation “Vessel”. The title “Vessel” has associations with both circulation and craft, and is suggestive of embodiment, enshrinement and containment. “Our Common Ground is collected under this heading, highlighting the relation of ideas, objects, and materials that combine , inform and influence our work”.

This is the first exhibition in the national tour of the Irish representation in Venice which will be shown as part of the Galway Arts Festival in July and at the National Sculpture Factory in Cork in September.

The exhibition opened to coincide with the EFAP European Forum on Architectural Poilicy conference, part of Ireland”s EU Presidency events.

On opening the exhibition Minister Quinn said, “This exhibition is a celebration of the success, nationally and internationally, of the achievements of contemporary Irish architecture. High quality design will be a key element in the delivery of a sustainable future.”

MORE PICTURES FROM THE OPENING HERE

L-R Yvonne Farrell, Shelley McNamara (Grafton Architects), Ruairì Quinn T.D. Minister for Education and Skills,  Elizabeth Francis Commissioner for Ireland.

VENUE: The CHQ Building, Docklands, Dublin 1

The exhibition will be open daily for three weeks from Saturday 11th May to Sunday 2nd June 2013.

Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland, in partnership with the Arts Council, the Irish Government agency for funding and developing the arts.

The Irish tour of Ireland’s representation at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 is supported by the Arts Council as part of its commitment to promote architecture to Irish audiences.

Supported by the Government Programme on Architecture 2013 Implementation Programme.

The Ireland at Venice 2012 exhibition opens in Dublin at the CHQ building on Friday May 10th.

SHIFTING GROUND – ARCHITECTURE AS NEW GEOGRAPHY – VESSEL

Celebrating Ireland’s participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 and Grafton Architects’ outstanding achievement in winning the Silver Lion, Ireland at Venice presents installations by heneghan peng architects (national representation), Grafton Architects, and O’Donnell and Tuomey Architects, each made specifically for the Biennale, in Dublin’s historic tobacco warehouse Stack A/CHQ. The three exhibits explore rich and diverse correspondences between sites and artforms, exploring the possibilities of architectural representation.

The exhibition will be open daily for three weeks from Saturday 11th May to Sunday 2nd June 2013.

Shifting Ground on Facebook and on Twitter @shifting_ground

The CHQ Building, IFSC, Docklands, Dublin 1

On Sunday November 25 th the 13th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia closed it’s doors to the public. This year over 178,000 visitors came to the Biennale with and average of 2,000 visitors a day.

The Shifting Ground exhibit in the Irish Pavilion, an oscillating bench designed by heneghan peng architects was very well received by the public and their engagement with the piece exceeded what the design team had envisiged.

If you did not get to see the exhibit in Venice you will have a chance next year when it will tour Ireland, opening in Dublin in early May 2013.

Movement locked, lights off until then.

More images of the last day at the Irish Pavilion here.

Students and staff from the School of Architecture University College Dublin came to the Venice Architecture Biennale for their third year study trip. While there they had a presentation on SHIFTING GROUND at the Irish Pavilion by Commisioner Elizabeth Francis when the oscillating bench was tested to its maximum capacity as 52 students balanced and shifted their respective weights.

The group participated in the BIENNALE SESSIONS holding a seminar in the Giardini and attended a seminar on Urban Civilisation by Professor Metschl at VIU, Venice International University at their campus on Isolo San Servolo.

UCD School of Architecture

BIENNALE SESSIONS

VIU

SHIFTING GROUND

Photo by Marie-Louise Halpenny

Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng on the Irish Pavilion installation.

The Pavilion of Ireland is located at the end of the Artiglierie in the Arsenale; it is composed of a series of wall drawings and a bench for resting. The two opposing walls transcribe the cutting matrix for the individual stones which form 2 folds in the landscape of the Giant’s Causeway Visitor’s Centre; the fold of the building and the fold of the car park. A long 12 meter bench, constructed of 6 interlinked sections, 6 rotation-only fulcrums & 5 translation pivots, provides a place to sit at the end of the Artiglierie. The bench, when at rest in balanced equilibrium is horizontal.

The soldier course, at 805mm above slab level, on the Artiglierie brick walls measures waterline and sets the height of the bench. This simple machine is brought out of stable equilibrium by sitting, changing the body’s relation to the set 805mm geometric horizon. 12 interlinked lever arms rotate; responding to a precise mechanical relationship set up between variable constraints, mass & position and fixed constraints, 11 pivot axes. A second person sitting sets in motion a second series of interconnected movements and so on with every subsequent visitor. Motion can be varied by sliding the body horizontally. This translation of mass along the bench length varies the lever arm and the resultant applied moment. Force applied at any of the 6 fulcrums (which are marked) does not vary motion; the bench remains static. The bench returns to stable equilibrium when no acting bodies are present.

The 2 opposing scripted walls are the geometric instruction set for stone fabrication both fixed & variable; that define the final cutting & set-out dimensions for the 186 basalt columns at the Giant’s Causeway Visitor’s Centre on the North Antrim Irish Coastline. The original architectural instruction set was designed to be adaptive to the unpredictable nature of the basalt extraction process. This final matrix transcribes information for each cutting template, position index, wastage/re-use ratio and maximum yield size per stone block based on inherent and induced fractures, during the 12 blast-extractions that occurred at local quarries in the 18-month construction programme.

heneghan peng architects

www.shiftingground.ie

The Irish Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia was inaugurated by Ambassador of Ireland to Italy Patrick Hennessy.

More on www.shiftingground.ie

and on facebook

SHIFTING GROUND. Preparations are well underway for the Irish Pavilion at the Arsenale in Venice. The 13th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia will open to the public on Wednesday August 29th. The Vernissage and press preview will take place on the previous two days and the Irish Pavilion will be inaugurated on Monday August 27th at 5.30pm. So much to do, so little time…