Building Design

Cork, with its bow-fronted, terraced buildings and winding main thoroughfare, is the most voluptuous of Irish cities. But it's a long time since the place was in love with architecture. During the past decade, as Dublin transformed itself, Cork produced few works of architectural significance. Only de Blacam & Meagher's relentless, massive brickwork at the Cork Institute of Technology and Erick van Egeraat's flamboyant, baroque exhibitions wing at the Crawford Municipal Gallery stand out. Now, as Cork prepares for its term as European Capital of Culture 2005, Barcelona's Beth Galli has given the city's serpentine St Patrick's Street an exotic carpet of polychromatic stone and O'Donnell & Tuomey Architects has gifted the university a dreamy, curvaceous new addition, a treasure-house-in-the-trees. Opening the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Irish president Mary MacAleese called it "a brilliant diamond set in the city's tiara".