A new kid on the block

I was on my way along the south Quays after lunch (on my way to the bank as usual) when I spotted something new on the far side of the river which caught my eye. I decided there and then to check it out on my way home, and actually followed through on this (very often I forget intentions such as this, or get distracted and do something else instead). From what I saw I suspected that what I'd seen was the first indication of real progress on Dublin's new Convention Centre, which is being built at Spencer Dock, and sure enough that's what it turned out to be. I'd remembered sketches I'd seen years ago, when the full-height glass atrium had made a strong impression and suggested that the finished building would be impressive. I spent a while watching construction workers busily swarming around the first sections of the steelwork frame which will support the tilted cylinder of the glazed front. It looks like a fiendishly complicated job, fitting all the sections together so they align correctly and come together to realise architect Kevin Roche's intentions.

Official word is that the project is actually ahead of schedule, and should open in September 2010 as planned. It includes a 2000-seat auditorium, which was the main aspect which surprised me when I first heard of it. We find it hard enough to fill the performance spaces we already have in the city, but now we're to have this along with the new Liebeskind theatre in Grand Canal Square, a newly-built and enlarged Abbey Theatre, a re-vamped Point Theatre which will have increased capacity over its original 5000 spaces, and a refurbished National Concert Hall which will include a new 2000-seat main hall, a new recital hall, and a re-design of the existing hall. I don't know where the audiences will come from -- though, of course, all these new facilities won't come on stream at once: and, knowing Ireland's poor track record in terms of finishing projects on time, some at least of them will most likely be delayed. Still it was good to see such tangible progress on one at least of the headline projects which we've all heard so much about.

And that's really all I did today. I'm a bit further along the road towards recovery from the trip to wonderful Zürich, but still not fully firing on all cylinders.