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Aakriti Sood

The gift of a new bank holiday in the form of St. Brigid’s Day will help us mark the beginning of spring and shake off those pesky January blues. The architecture calendar for the month has something for anyone looking to re-enter society as the evenings start to get longer.

For any fans of the De Stijl movement, Hugh Lane is presenting the exhibition Reconstructing Mondrian by John Beattie which runs between February 1st and August 8th. An intersection between art and architecture, this exhibition is presented with a series of kinetic and static installations on the filming of the reconstruction of Mondrian’s notorious pentagonal Paris Studio. Beattie’s exhibition contemplates contrast with the permanence of Francis Bacon’s Studio at the Hugh Lane. The artist offers a new perspective to the representation of the mythic places of creation as viewed within the frame of a museum.

The Architectural Association of Ireland is kicking off the year’s events with a lecture by Charlotte Malterre Barthes on February 02. An architect, urban designer, scholar and educator, Charlotte will present current and recent research projects. Her research is centred around untangling the political economy in the construction industry. She will also cast light on ‘A Global Moratorium on New Construction’, an initiative that focusses on a need for urgent and drastic change to be enforced into the current construction practice as we step into an uncertain future.

February is the last chance to engage with the brilliant Housing Unlocked by the Irish Architecture Foundation & the Housing Agency as it completes it run. IAF invites discussion on the topic of vacancy in our villages, towns and cities with a two-part Reimagine Session: New Life for Old Buildings. On the 10th, a panel of speakers will share ideas, case studies and initiatives, with the aim of inspiring discussion, ideas and action. The following day guest speaker Nick Taaffe invites us to a site visit in Dún Laoghaire where he will present a reuse retail-to-home conversion project he has undertaken.

We Turn Towards an Ending and Pay Attention, opens at VISUAL Carlow on February 4th and runs until 14th May. Through the lens of the now demolished Church of the Annunciation in Finglas, artist Fiona Hallinan, explores the fading relationship of the church and the community and its effect on our architectural currency. The church embodying the symbolic dominance of the structure rising above the rolling suburbs and its destruction as a loss of a place for social ritual and community gathering.

Finally, I would like to draw attention to a lecture by Nicola Matthews The year of European Cultural Heritage and ICOMOS on the 21st hosted by the Irish Georgian Society. Matthews will discuss principles for high quality interventions to the cultural heritage intrinsically linked to the built fabric to help inform action towards conservation practice.