ODonnell and Tuomeys Lyric Theatre, Belfast - Dissertation Example

O’Donnell + Tuomey appreciate tradition, and that tradition ought to be brought into the 21st Century and translated in order to retain meaning in the present day. This is how they approach and interpret each design brief. The inspiration of Aldo Rossi to Irish architects, who acknowledged that “in Venice, where although one may be interested in whether a building is by Palladio or Longhena, it is first and always the Stones of Venice,”1 is also an inspiration to O'Donnell + Tuomey.

They, too, believe that the materials of the land are the materials that should be used in their buildings, which is why, for instance, their Lyric Theatre, which is the subject of this dissertation, uses the bricks which are commonly found in buildings throughout Dublin. On returning from five years in London in 1982 – where Sheila O’Donnell completed a masters degree at The Royal College of Art, and both she and John Tuomey worked with James Stirling – Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey returned “in search of a subject,” married, bought a house and thought about how they might go “in search of the soul of Irish architecture”.

Their role as studio teachers at UCD has involved not only educating a generation of Irish architects that are now gaining international recognition (Tom De Paor being the most prominent); they could also be said to have saved Irish architectural culture from the cults of technology and critical theory that afflict British architectural education. O’Donnell and Tuomey architects (O’D+T) can reasonably be considered to have cared for the soul of Irish architecture over the past few decades.

2 It is impossible to think about the past two decades of Irish architecture without considering O’Donnell + Tuomey. Indeed without their involvement with Group ’91, alongside Grafton architects, Paul Keogh and others, there would be no Temple Bar or Lyric Theatre, and, he suggests, no internationally recognizable image of modern Ireland for young Irish people. Having learned from Rossi, O’Donnell + Tuomey, as tutors in The School of Architecture in UCD ran student projects using Rossi’s city/ Urban ideals in “ Architecture in the City” as the template to create a new urban fabric.