Starchitecture

Oh là là mes petits choux, this is my last Irish post for a while because tomorrow I will be celebrating La Saint Patrick in Paris!

But before I go to pack, let me tell you about the pilgrimage Máire Áine and I made on Saturday to see the best of Dublin’s most recent starchitecture. (This is my new favourite word – MA taught it to me. That’s what friends are for.)

We went down to the Docklands (doesn’t that sound like the beginning of a song?) to see all of the new building that was done before the Celtic Tiger suffered death and was buried.

The first starchitect featured is Santiago Calatrava. This is his second bridge over the Liffey. It’s meant to look like an Irish harp, but I saw a photo of a similar bridge in Rotterdam recently so I’m not sure I believe that Santiago had Irish harps in mind.

It is a pretty bridge, though.

The second piece of starchitecture is Daniel Liebeskind's theatre at the Grand Canal basin. This has actually grown on me a lot. The first view we had of it wasn’t promising:

But just walk round the other side and look!

These sparkling new creations definitely help to relieve the gloom of the post-boom. But I'm thinking it'll be a while before we get any more starchitecture for Dublin.