|
Designed by Paul Keogh Architects, Meeting House Square
lies at the confluence of several pedestrian routes
through Temple Bar. It forms the heart of the secondary
meandering path, running from the new Curved Street
through the quarter's maze, that supports the main East-West
axis of Fleet Street and East Essex Street.
It was built on a previously derelict plot of land,
most recently used as a surface car park and takes its
name from buildings which form two of its four sides
- the Presbyterian Meeting House (1728), now the Ark
and the nineteenth century Quaker Meeting House, transformed
into the Irish Film Centre in 1992.
More of an outdoor room than a square, it was designed
primarily as a space for cultural activities and open-air
performance, including film screenings and theatre productions.
Originally MHS should have opened out further onto East
Essex street and would have been supported by the linear
pedestrian throughway that the Poddle Bridge promised
but these plans had to be revised owing to the protection
of two listed buildings at the Essex street end and
the refusal of planning permission respectively.
We talked to Paul Keogh and Rachel Chidlow of Paul
Keogh Architects about the design concepts behind the
square. Click here
to view the interview.
It is bounded on all four sides by cultural facilities
- the
Ark to the east, the
Gallery of Photography and the Irish
Film Centre to the south, a mixed-use building housing
a restaurant and the Gaiety
School of Acting to the west and the
DIT School of Photography / National Photography Archive
to the north.
You can also see a Quicktime VR of the square itself
here
|
