The Architecture Review

With the construction of new local authority buildings all over the country, Ireland is undergoing something of a municipal renaissance. Encouragingly, rather than opt for lowest common denominator methods of commissioning and design, the Irish authorities have put the majority out to competition, thus raising architectural standards and presenting a younger generation of designers with a chance to tackle sizeable projects. Briefs emphasize openness, transparency and environmental responsibility, with reduced energy use in construction and operation. The outcome is a lively new coterie of civic buildings that confound and transcend the more familiar notions of municipal drabness. Completed at the end of last year, Bucholz McEvoy's county hall and offices in Dooradoyle, County Limerick personifies this new Celtic wave. An earlier municipal building in Fingal (AR February 2001) represented an audacious coming of age for the Dublin-based partnership of Merrit Bucholz and Karen McEvoy, manifesting skill and style beyond their years (both not yet 40). And though this latest project is, as some critics have noted, the equivalent of that difficult second album, happily there seems to be no loss of energy or ingenuity in its conception and execution.