Our Director Nathalie Weadick will be part of a Q+A with Emmett Scanlon (curator) selected architects including Michael Pike and Alice Clancy from the Nine Lives exhibition on Tuesday 11 August at National Craft Gallery. The talk titled Occupation and Craft in Architecture will be at 5.30pm followed by the Q+A.

Nine Lives, curated by Emmett Scanlon is on view in the National Craft Gallery, Kilkenny from 8 August until 27 September and presents the work of nine emerging Irish architectural practices. It is part of the New Horizon exhibition that is being shown at the London Festival of Architecture 2015. Nine Lives was first exhibited in the Design Museum Tank from 1 to 30 June.

New Horizon, a series of presentations in three high-profile venues around the world: London, Chicago, Shenzhen; curated by Natahlie Weadick and Raymund Ryan, draws its inspiration from important thresholds in the history of contemporary Irish architecture. In 1991 eight practices working collaboratively as Group 91 won the master plan competition for Temple Bar in Dublin City Centre; born in the 1950s, several of these architects have gone on to significant international careers. Between Ireland’s initial Venice Pavilion in 2000 and the most recent in 2014, key architects of the generation born in the 1960s have represented Ireland with flair at the prestigious Venice Biennale International Exhibition of Architecture.

The architects participating in New Horizon belong to the next generation. Born after the 1970s and educated on the cusp of the new millennium, they commenced practice as Europe’s economy encountered formidable challenges. These new practices have not only weathered that storm, they exhibit resourcefulness and optimism in their profession. Each has found a way to practice critically, to look at what exists in nature and the built environment, to discover potential in previously overlooked situations, to collaborate across disciplines and evolve new modes of practice for the 21st century. The scope of this work is both Irish and conscious of global design culture. It looks to a better future.

New Horizon was launched on 1 June 2015 at London Festival of Architecture and Ireland was selected as the inaugural Focus Country.

Image: Nine Lives by Emmett Scanlon. Image courtesy of Jon Bosworth.