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Like many professionals of his generation
he was perhaps more comfortable with the idea
of himself as radical some decades ago. Does he
remember his personal stance on the demolitions
of Georgian Dublin in the sixties and seventies
including Fitzwilliam St? He answers that archi-
tecture students occupied Hume St. And archi-
tects were involved in opposing Wood Quay. He
took part in the sit-in in the Bord na Mona build-
ings in Pembroke St for a few nights but he’s keen
to emphasise he wasn’t, less still to take credit
for being, a ringleader. I constantly push him
to admit the need for radical solutions but he is
squeamish, in the end saying that ordinary and
sometimes simple ideas well done can sometimes
be the most radical. Perhaps that is necessary in
the president of a venerable institute (Keogh, inci-
dentally, says he would not consider it a priority
to change the Royal R in RIAI).
Paul Keogh lives in Rathmines with his wife
and two children; and,although they have a -se-
ries BMW, he mostly cycles - and uses it only for
essential trips. He is himself best known for his
un-built Heuston quarter (including the -storey
tower), for his role in the rejuvenation of Temple
Bar and for representing Dermot Desmond in
devastatingly torpedoing the unpopular first
scheme proposed for Spencer Dock. So, before
I move on to the fitness for purpose of the RIAI,
I want to know what buildings he likes and dis-
likes. “I have favourite buildings and buildings I
don’t like, but I always come back to places. The
recent improvements to O’Connell St in Dublin
are excellent: minimalist, functional, high qual-
ity, excellently detailed: good planning will
stand the test of time; Patrick St in Cork and the
pedestrianised Roberts Square in Waterford are
great”. Implausibly, he thinks Eyre Square has
transformed and given Galway focus, though he
admits it’s a compromise between hard and green
spaces. “Dublin’s Smithfield suffers as it doesn’t
have the uses necessary to sustain such a large
space” – but he, charitably, thinks that is no fault
of the architects. “All these schemes have calmed
the car and improved the pedestrian and retail
flow which is important in helping compete with
car-dependent out-of-town developments”. He’s a
little reluctant to criticise particular buildings but,
when pushed, is against Sandyford - “too high,
too dense, no real sign of quality”, and doesn’t like
the Dundrum Shopping Centre as it takes shop-
pers from Dublin City Centre – and he’s against
malls anyway. He’s impressed by Malmo and
Hammarby in Stockholm (eco-schemes), which
he’s visited, but then again, who isn’t? I push him
to indulge his personal taste and he says he will
come back to this. He soon does, with surprising
relish. Schemes he can see the value of but doesn’t
like? He feels that Grand Canal Square is “over-
designed - red lights, green lights, too many fixed
planters and seating”. The Grand Canal Theatre
is characterised by “Libeskind’s slashy gestures”
which he is concerned will date and wear, “and
the scheme could be anywhere. Does he [starchi-
tect, Libeskind] know he’s in Dublin?” He con-
trasts it with
O’ Donnell and Tuomey’s new Timberyard
housing in Cork St, a development which, Keogh
says, “has layers of meaning”. I think this could
be the language of archito-waffle - the medium for
getting so much black-polo-neck-designed bru-
talism over the line with planning authorities. “It
could only be in Dublin. There was a timber yard
there and there’s a theme of reference to that. In
terms of the footprint there’s a pedestrian link in
to the Liberties, and there’s almost a reflection of
the building in Newmarket. The use of wood and
brick has a resonance with the site and Dolphin’s
Barn”. We are both relieved that it seems practi-
cally certain he wasn’t bluffing.
He can also be critical of his own schemes:
“Meeting House Square [in Temple Bar] might
have been better with an Elephant and Castle
café-style presence – with families in and out for
the whole day, not just an enclosed space which
only opens for lunch and dinner”.
As well as being upbeat about the legacies of
both the distant and recent past, Paul Keogh is
optimistic about the future and excited about
both RIAI and government policy. Keogh recently
launched the RIAI Action Plan - and
John Gormley recently published a -point
Government policy for architecture – and com-
mitted his Department of the Environment to
a major programme of support for quality and
sustainability in architecture and urbanism. Its
first proposal is convening a built-environment
research committee with a view to developing a
“robust framework for an evidence-based policy
on architecture”. Keogh is understandably enthu-
siastic about more research and evidence-based
architecture and the RIAI is campaigning for it:
the idea is to see why certain things work and oth-
ers do not. While we research the economic con-
sequences of government decisions, we do not
know the consequences for either the economy
or quality of life of, for example, building out-of
town, providing (or not providing) Community
and sports facilities, providing sunny orienta-
tions, building houses rather than apartments.
Or using uPVC rather than timber. Keogh can see
that a matrix assessing the consequences of par-
ticular plans, developments and even building
materials would serve to make the consequences
of planning and development predictable – and so
improve them. The government’s action plan also
provides for a ‘State architect’, more county archi-
tects, more emphasis on design from local author-
ities in both their own and private-sector building
plans and more teaching of
design in primary, second-
ary and teacher-training
schools.
The main roles these
days of the RIAI (founded
) are: Promoting
architecture; Supporting
architects and archi-
tectural technicians;
Regulating architects; and
Protecting the consumer
The principal mission
of the RIAI, Keogh says, is
to promote good architecture to the benefit of the
consumer. There’s now a body of evidence that
good architecture adds value, improves competi-
tiveness, and can even transform the quality of life.
The RIAI publishes policies to this end.
One of the RIAI objectives about which he is
bullish is the possibility of incorporating design
review into our planning system: in the UK and
Netherlands they’ve well established review proc-
esses. Dublin City Council has three wise men
who serve this function but the RIAI is looking
to facilitate such reviews more generally. As a
result he recently nominated expert architects
- and in the future business-people and commu-
nity groups might be involved - to look at a par-
ticularly challenging site outside Dublin and to
review the appropriateness of the design. In
this case it was conducted after an unfavourable
Bord Pleanála decision but – clearly - it should be
done at pre-planning stage. He will be talking to
County Managers about extending this.
PHOTOS: TONy HIggINS AND FIONN MCCANN
“still passionate about
architecture and architectural
policy, analytical and serious-
minded”
— village June - July 2010
He believes the RIAI Architecture Awards,
which some criticise as clubby mutual self-rein-
forcement, but which now genuinely have some
world-class architects and schemes to choose
from, have served to promote good architecture.
The RIAI was recently given control over a
statutory registration system that legally restricts
the title ‘architect’. To be on the register you must
pass exams, meet a high standard of professional
conduct and undergo continuing professional
development. This will assist consumers in the
selection of a practice to provide them with pro-
fessional services. The RIAI has developed an
accreditation system to recognise differing lev-
els of specialist expertise; and he says he hopes to
extend this system to embrace the principles and
practice of sustainability and urban design.
The RIAI is looking at the establishment of a
quality assurance scheme for particular practices,
though not for schemes.
But, I note, nearly all these measures are vol-
untary, educative, promotional or whatever. They
lack teeth. And that’s important because the pub-
lic rhetoric on architecture has been good for gen-
erations and really excellent for at least a decade
– and it has made little enough difference on the
quality of the built environment on the ground.
Words and often policies are not enough in a
country where decisions on planning and archi-
tecture are taken by county managers under pres-
sure from councilors representing baying vested
interests.
If RIAI members were now building ‘s or
‘s-style buildings would it sanction them? He
thinks “there’s no way they could. For example we
might say demolishing Fitzwilliam St for a pretty
banal ESB office block was wrong but it was done
after a full international competition and even [the
eminent (English) authority on Georgian architec-
ture], John Summerson had disdained – ‘one damn
house after another’ -the buildings which were
knocked down. You look at different things at dif-
ferent times with different glasses”. Demolitions
aren’t now such a big issue but could the RIAI sanc-
tion failure to comply with best international stand-
ards of conservation or sustainability? He doesn’t
think so and doesn’t think that there is a niche for
the RIAI to market itself as insisting on standards
higher than the minimum – in design, conserva-
tion or carbon emissions for example - in order to
distinguish themselves from non-accredited build-
ing-designers. “Architects may want to rise above
current regulation standards but clients and even
some government Department they are tendering
to, may say no, for example”. So if not sanctions
how about at least recommendations to members,
from the RIAI? He won’t really answer. I conclude
that it is a little compromising for the RIAI to bal-
ance the interest of architects with the public inter-
est in architecture. With its twin functions it is not
well positioned to insist its members rise above the
legal, minimum standards.
In truth he is happier talking about what
design or, perhaps surprisingly more particu-
larly, good planning might entail – and preclude.
He believes that the high-density European-style
city is the most sustainable. It leads to inherently
greener lifestyles, centring on more efficient use
of infrastructure and less use of transport and
energy. He says that on average urban dwellers
generate about half the emissions of people in
lower-density suburban and rural locations. In
the US, the typical New Yorker generates around
a third of the US national average”. For this rea-
son, even though he has designed the occasional
one-off house he notes that “I’m sorry but even
the one-off passive house, even with triple-glazed
windows, solar panels, heat pumps, hybrid cars
and suchlike is still unsus-
tainable”. But Cloughjordan
(Ireland’s first ‘eco-devel-
opment’ which some say
is in the wrong place and
dependent on commuters
and second-homers) and
the Irish Rural Dwellers
(who campaign for more
one-off housing) will dif-
fer. We need to take into
account the long-term
and wider effects of build-
ing – the lifestyle and infra-
structural costs of one-off
for example, he says.
I ask him if he thinks the legacy of Irish archi-
tects since institution of the RIAI is good. “Yes”, he
says. He takes me through the greatest Irish archi-
tects since the Victorian era - Deane and Morrisson;
Horace O’Rourke after the Rising; Social Housing
in Townsend St in Dublin in the thirties by Simms,
Dublin airport in the ‘s by Desmond Fitzgerald,
Scott’s hospitals in the ‘s and RTE in the ‘s;
Andy Devane’s Carroll’s building on Grand Parade,
Liam McCormick’s churches. He also lists Dublin’s
Architecture
“Like many professionals of his
generation he was perhaps
more comfortable with the
idea of himself as radical some
decades ago”.
Keogh’s unbuilt scheme for high-rise near Heuston Station
