Art's new shrine an architectural triumph
Tuesday January 22 2002
Confined in space, incorporating an L-shaped jointure with the Beit Wing of the Merrion Square gallery, and embracing what will come to be seen as the inescapable Georgian elegance of our great capital city right at its centre, the work of the two Scottish architects is superb both in its grandeur and its detail.
Within the Clare Street entrance, the Spartan Celtic elegance of the design is immediately apparent. Lofty, angular, undecorated except by its own planes and the soft light falling from above, the building has a kind of Gothic, castle-like authority. The staircases sweep up and away to the full height of the building.
There is the hint of slitted windows, of overhanging balconies and of distant figures crossing the mysterious bridge between two parts of the main gallery on the highest floor.
Yet it is 21st century Gothic: austere, clean, neutral and pure. The overwhelming sense is of surfaces undefiled. The idea of finding pictures here is an adventurous one.
In their technical detail the galleries and the approaches to them are superbly conceived and rendered. The lighting for the main gallery falls in cadenced splendour from above, its rays reflecting in visual echoes against the natural, pale grey plaster walls. A floor is "lost" at the mezzanine level, allowing lofty rooms for the rehung Irish collection.
This shows, for the first time to proper advantage, a considered representation of the best of the last century; earlier works are in the Merrion Square section.
Despite the overall grandeur in the design, and the impression of vast and lofty territory given by the very witty use of staircase after staircase in one long rise to the distant heights of the building, the entrance area is intimate and inviting.
For the opening, the gallery chose an exhibition that had already been mounted by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and drew on the excellent collection of Impressionist works there.
It is a shade on the sombre side. The emphasis is on where impressionism came from, with excellent and rarely seen examples of works by Barbizon painters, by the wonderful master-figure in the birth of Impressionism, Gustave Courbet, and with lovely individual works by Chintreuil, Jean-Francois Millet, Boudin and Jongkind.
Among the many delights are two superb Van Gogh paintings, and two fine Cezannes, which remind us that modern art may have begun with Impressionism but went on to sterner and more condensed mastery of colour and form.
In her speech Sile de Valera told us we would now witness "the beginning of a new era on the history of the National Gallery. This architectural landmark will add to and enhance the existing buildings of the National Gallery and will embrace the architectural landscape of Dublin city as a whole."
But it will need to do more. Some reorganisation has followed on the new building and the intentions are good. But the new era will have to address keenly and intelligently the shape and design of what resides within the walls and under the pale, diffuse lighting. Originality of thought and concept, a brighter vision, will be demanded by those who enter through the double doors in Clare Street.
- Bruce Arnold
