Buildings End

Buildings End. But they do not expire. Their life cycle is not contingent on a ‘best-before’. Buildings are elastic and material. They can decompose. They are often forced to end. What do we do with ‘out of use’ and ‘out of time’ buildings that remain standing, in semi-occupation or fallow? How can we incorporate an awareness of the ‘architectural end of life’, right from the beginning? 

Buildings End was an exhibition staged by the Department of Ultimology at the Irish Architectural Archive from September to October 2023. It took the subject of architecture that is at risk of demolition or degradation to create a space of attention for this phenomenon.

The centrepiece of the exhibition space was a major sculptural installation, Fragment Meditation by artist Fiona Hallinan. Comprising a table made of steel and concrete running through the space, it was a physical record of a building no longer existing –  the Church of the Annunciation, Finglas West, Dublin, built in 1967 and demolished in 2021. The sculpture was made by incorporating rubble from the church into the fabric of the newly constituted concrete slabs, echoing both the material of the original building and its functionality.

In the drafting room visitors were presented with Hallinan's artwork framing collated fragments of Rowley’s research on architecture and ultimology, including case studies of buildings and material from the Irish Architectural Archive and other sources. These fragments were hand-annotated and ring-bound, covering three categories of ‘at risk’ buildings which are – according to architectural historian Ellen Rowley – too young or recent to be of historical significance, yet too old to be functional or relevant in the early 21st century. The buildings most susceptible to obsolescence in 2020s Ireland are office buildings from c.1950 to c.1980, (older-than-50 years) housing blocks, and large scale 1950s and 1960s Catholic churches.