Irish Life Centre – Architectural Tour

A free architectural tour of the Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street Dublin 1
Led by: Dr Carole Pollard

Meeting point: Oisín Kelly's Chariot of Life.

About the Irish Life Centre:
One of the first examples of comprehensive redevelopment in Dublin’s north inner city, the mixed-use development of shopping and offices, by architect Andy Devane, also includes a sizeable residential content, overlooking a raised and luxuriantly planted, multi-level courtyard. The development is conceived as a citadel within the city complete with moat and retractable drawbridge, which was an idea made current by the Barbican complex (1965-76) in London. The architectural language is adopted from the same firm’s Stephen Court on St Stephen’s Green. Oisín Kelly’s bronze sculpture, ‘The Chariot of Life’, commissioned in 1978 was posthumously unveiled in 1982.

DR CAROLE POLLARD
Dr Carole Pollard is an architect and her practice includes research, writing and teaching in the fields of architectural history and professional practice. In 2022 she completed a PhD on the life and work of Irish 20th-century architect, Andy Devane. She is the coordinating editor for the Irish entries in the upcoming Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960-2015and is co-editor with Ellen Rowley of More than Concrete Blocks Vol 3. Her current research work, entitled From Gray to Grafton focuses on the overlooked and forgotten Irish women architects of the 20th century.