Irish Architectural Archive (IAA) presents an exhibition of architectural models inspired by and based on drawings from the past, in collaboration with the Drawing Matter Trust and the Architecture Foundation.

Acknowledging that architecture is a corpus of inherited ideas, Alternative Histories invited more than 80 contemporary practices in the UK and Europe to imagine an exchange with architects from the past. Each office was assigned a different drawing from the collection of Drawing Matter – from the frontispiece of the abbé Laugier’s 1753 Essai sur l’architecture, a plan of the Villa Snellman, to studies for a theatre by Carlo Scarpa. The architects were then tasked with making a model that not only responded to what they saw, but envisioned an alternative future for the original drawing while adhering to the constraints of the project: although comprising different materials and scales, the models had to be transportable, and their footprints had to fit within the surface area of the historic drawings.

Ten Irish architecture practices are participating in the exhibition including O'Donnell + Tuomey, Tom de Paor, Taka and Grafton Architects.
See O'Donnell + Tuomey's entry, based on Zaha Hadid’s perspective studies for Azabu-Juban, here.

Following runs in London (Cork Street Galleries March–April 2019), and Brussels (CIVA, September 2019), Alternative Histories is travelling to the Irish Architectural Archive in Merrion Square, Dublin.

Alternative Histories takes place at Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, from 2 December 2020 to 26 February 2021.

Category:
• Exhibitions