Along with Stephen Ferguson, Assistant Secretary of An Post, Brian Kavanagh, Fergal Ryan and Joy Kearns, of Kavanagh Tuite Architects, were invited to speak at RIAI for its Capstone Shift lecture series.
'To mark the Centenary of 1916, the Irish Architectural Archive (IAA), the RIAI and its journal Architecture Ireland have developed a joint programme of lectures and articles entitled ‘Capstones Shift: Architectural Legacies of the Easter Rising’ which run throughout 2016. The lectures are accompanied by a series of articles in Architecture Ireland and focus on a selection of prominent Dublin buildings destroyed or utterly changed by the events of Easter 1916 and later. These buildings were central to myriad social, commercial, political and religious patterns of life. Their absence, or removal from use, would have had an immediate and disconcerting effect on the daily routines and interactions of thousands of ordinary Dubliners as they lived, moved, worked, prayed and entertained themselves in the post-Rising city, quotidian disruptions making unavoidable and un-ignorable the profound political phase-shift that had occurred.'
(RIAI/news/article/Capstone Shift)
Brian and Fergal gave a fascinating and insightful lecture about the process of restoring the East courtyard to its former glory, the importance of craftsmanship involved within the conservation of such an complex landmark building, and the challenges met and overcome with the construction of the GPO Witness History, the new contemporary exhibition centre, that twines itself within the fabric and history of one of Dublin's most iconic buildings.
