Touring Ireland over the past six months, ‘The Reason of Towns’ celebrates the design qualities of Irish towns and aims to motivate people to choose them as a place to live.
Touring Ireland over the past six months, ‘The Reason of Towns’ celebrates the design qualities of Irish towns and aims to motivate people to choose them as a place to live. Inspired by architect Valerie Mulvin’s passion for Irish towns, the exhibition offers a multifaceted showcase focused on the quality of interior and exterior urban spaces.
Mulvin’s book Approximate Formality: Morphology of Irish Towns (2021) encouraged curator Emmett Scanlon and producer Felix Hunter Green of the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF) to commission the exhibition. The result combines McCullough Mulvin Architects’ thirty-year portfolio with Re-Imagine, an IAF-sponsored town-architect initiative. The exhibition comprises a mix of hand-drawn maps of towns alongside physical models –‘the architect’s tool to wonder and wander’ – and an illuminated wall of slides celebrating the relationship between Irish public spaces and European urban design traditions.
While the occupation of Irish towns has transformed, this creative outpouring seeks to revitalise their insides
The Shape of Towns: Looking and Seeing 4, a 1966 book by art educator Kurt Rowland (1920–1980) is also showcased. Rowland’s main preoccupation was teaching people to carefully observe – an intention that resonates with this exhibition and the multiple authors involved in its creation.
New photographs and specially commissioned films bring the exhibition to life. They include ‘Of Pride and Place’, based on the work of ten town architects, and an interview with Mulvin by Vincent Woods for Areaman Productions. A contrasting film by Red Pepper Productions, ‘The Space Is the Thing’, is displayed as a diptych. It shows the public façades of four towns – Clones, Youghal, Dungarvan and Templemore – side by side with their hidden spaces, offering a rare juxtaposition of the familiar and more private lives of towns.
While the occupation of Irish towns has turned inside out, this creative outpouring seeks to revitalise their insides – their spaces – sparking their potential renewal by how each visitor responds. The last iteration of the exhibition is on show at the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen, from 12 April to 24 May.
Miriam Fitzpatrick
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