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Exhibition

Close Encounter: Meetings with Remarkable Buildings

“Together with our collaborator, Hugh Campbell, we asked sixteen, contemporary practicing architect teams to research one selected building, each of which was chosen by us. Close Encounter calls on the generosity of each of the invited architects to ‘take’ the work of another architect and help it to be remembered, understood, re-valued and appreciated for its own inherent worth”

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Curators, FREESPACE

Following from the success of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition-La Biennale di Venezia 2018, we are proud to be producing the tour of Close Encounter. The tour gives us a chance to leave a lasting legacy in Ireland for Irish architects, architecture and artistic culture, and will catalyse that legacy for all the participants. In this group of sixteen teams, there was a mix of both emerging and more established practitioners. The tour will give opportunity to all participants to present their work to an Irish audience.

Within the concept of Close Encounter, each assigned the work of an architect from the past, chosen by the curators. The task is for each practice to interpret this work in a way, which represented the core idea of the chosen building, in a way that will communicate with the public, and in a way, which will bring the legacy of this work alive.

Close Encounter: Meetings with Remarkable Buildings grew out of the Venice Mentoring Initiative as a Special Project of Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Curators of Freespace, the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice. 

 Funded by the Arts Council, the aim of the initiative was to enable sixteen Irish architects, who were invited to participate at the 2018 Biennale, to develop skills in presenting and communicating their work to a public audience in Venice. The tour gives audiences here an opportunity to engage with this unique exhibition of architecture while contributing to the legacy of the Mentoring Initiative for architectural practice, curation and culture in Ireland.

The tour is produced by the Irish Architecture Foundation in partnership with the Glucksman and Visual Carlow.  Supported by Dublin Port Company.

IAF in partnership with The Glucksman and the National Sculpture Factory will also present the Curating Architecture Conference on April 6th in Cork.