the following is a collection of images, collected over the last Open House weekend,  last November, 4-5 months ago,  from various walks, talks, visits and peregrinations during that lovely weekend…     A few of these i’ll post on at some future point, but for now perhaps the images speak better for themselves.   Taken together, they help explain why we love this city,  and love learning about it and exploring it…

We start with the interior of private house, beautifully restored, (the 2 pictures just below)   

Above:  from a private house 1, post-restoration, North city Centre.

Below, pictures,then we move to an exhibition by architects, staged in a semi-derelict house, on the same street.mostly featuring an exhibition of conceptual architectural models & projects. Different private house, pre-restoration, but same street,  North city Centre.

I especially liked this model, (above, & below)   -the shifting parallax, & the lovely stark minimalism of it.  I’m quite a fan of minimal artworks, particularly from that amazing generation of American artists from the late 60s, 70s and on.  (Gordon Mata-Clark; Robert Morris,, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Serra etc, a very varied bunch I know but anyway…)   Anything that teaches us to appreciate rhythms or series or repetitions in sculpture or architecture;  even in a pile of building materials;  or in a multistory car-park,  seems like good news to me.  

above, detail, same model. 

Actually, this last picture (above)  is just a part of an interior wall inside the the house, with the old, damp plaster stripped off to leave the old Georgian-era wall-structure exposed.  I admit, I thought for a bit it was some sort of installation, and so spent 20-minutes gawping at it.  You’d think I’d be embarrassed when I realized it was just a wall.  But you’d be wrong, that just made me even happier.  Yep, easily pleased…    But you know why.  

Below, more models, maps and displays from the exhibition. 

Loved this lace-like map too, (above)  with the city blocks cut out, to leave  just the roads & streets remaining.  I’ve a wonderful art piece, a map, very like this in my own home, made by & bought from a young Spanish artist a few years back.  One of my most treasured things.  

Dubliners will instantly recognise this building represented above, (in the two previous pictures (above).   For over seas readers, the  model represents our (state) Central Bank,  on Dame Street,here in Dublin, on the edge or cusp of Temple Bar.  

As you gather, the old, battered house was the perfect backdrop, in fact, more than that, it was every bit as much the star of the show as any of the models.

I was going to write more in this post, post more pictures-  other images, buildings; trees; plaques; window frames; shadows of leaves, branches & old metal work, cast on old school walls.  But perhaps I’ll leave it here.   Sometimes less is more.

End.