National Photographic Archive / DIT School of Photography

The Temple Bar Framework Plan proposed cultural uses around the new public space of Meeting House Square.

Two functions were combined to make this building: the photographic archive from the National Library and the Dublin Institute of Technology School of Photography. The brief called for the exclusion of daylight from studios, darkrooms, lecture rooms, archive storage and exhibition areas.

Its pivotal location in Temple Bar suggested the need for the building to have a strong presence. The requirement to exclude daylight led to the heavily modelled facade containing an internal complexity of functions. The brickwork was intended to relate to the material quality of Dublin buildings, a tradition which runs from the early Georgian Henrietta Street to Benjamin Woodward’s Kildare Street Club.