Even Ledwithstown House, County Longford 5 which notionally adopts a similar facade strategy, ultimately allows both the functionality of the plan and stylistic concerns to undermine the logic, resulting in false apertures and an articulated entrance condition. de Paor succumbs to neither conceit and instead creates an object which both drives the organization of the plan into a subservient position and, in its disposition of façade elements and constancy of elevation which denies even the articulation of a common door, creates a figure which is irresolute in terms of both its frontality and its function. The object thus created develops an equivocal presence with its immediate context, revealing little of its logic to passersby and deflecting any simple interpretation. Similarities to the traditional country house multiple as one looks closer, from the thickness of corners to the suppression of cornice detail (a particularly Irish trait) and to the improbable central location of the chimney stack and Georgian-scaled windows. All could find reference to any number of fine old houses to be found in Ireland. And yet, there seems a simultaneous denial of all reference through the precise and explicitly contemporary detailing at each turn. The tautness of aluminum framed glazing to the plain grey render [fig5] in combination with unarticulated windows operating as doors, seem to deny even occupation, evoking instead more ruinous states and vacancy. Equally the overtly shallow roof profile which all but disappears as one approaches, and only achievable through modern roofing materials, contradicts any historic associations. All of which achieves a seemingly explicit and intentional undermining of direct historic association through modern construction methods. The Doherty House is neither a mimcry of old traditions, nor is it original if this word is understood to mean without a frame of reference. Hence its troubling character as it stands as a newly authoritative object within the contemporary field of a suburban condition. The architect de Paor, currently living in Dublin but native to the west counties of Ireland, states that his intentions were to ‘build a memory’, something recalled from his own youth, of the ubiquitous Irish country house. Recognizing that each was built with extraordinary specificity and character his intention was to spurn any actual reference by looking at none and thus to achieve the inherent truth of them all through the medium of half-recalled memory. His only specific reference comes not from Ireland but from America, through the image Christina painted by Andrew Wyeth, which sets a house in the background as a positioning or reference point in the landscape. An intention translated, in the case of the Doherty House, to a reference point in a landscape of memory and association. Two apparently disparate examples yet both linked through their power to evoke unlikely associations, which inspire and engage the imagination of the viewer, to reveal truths regarding a wider context, both physical and imaginative. A context described by a landscape of memory, aided by a certain amount of forgetfulness, of associations and imaginative conjectures which are critical to an active engagement with the inherent complexity of the ordinary. g
figure 5
1 Colfer, Billy. The Hook Peninsula, County Wexford . Cork: Cork University Press, 2005. ringfort image 2 Merleau-Ponty, M. Phenomenology of Perception . translated by Smith, London: Routledge Classics, 2002. p18 3 Craig, M. Classic Irish Houses of the Middle Size. Dublin: Ashfield Press, 1976. pp90-92 4 ibid. pp98-100 5 McCullough, N., Mulvin, V. A Lost Tradition . Dublin: Gandon Editions, 1987
Elizabeth Shotton currently teaches design and technology at the School of Architecture, University College Dublin in Ireland. Prior to moving to Dublin in 2002 she ran a private architectural practice in Vancouver and taught design at the University of BC. Publications include Peter Cardew: Ordinary Buildings , Issues of Gravity and an essay in Material Matters to be released by Routledge in December.
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