Shay Cleary Architects

Shay Cleary is unmistakably a Modernist, an architect in that progressive, sometimes stark lineage integrally associated with 20th-century culture but instigated very much earlier. With his exploration of volume and structure and colour, Cleary has been inspired by the urbane and painterly work of Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Indebted to the Swiss-French master, the Irish architect’s work has nevertheless developed its own local resonance. Its methodology of form, structure and skin has some Classical essence akin – albeit in the materials of today – to the thin architecture and luminous interiors of the Enlightenment. Georgian Dublin did not develop organically: Irish neo-Classicism was itself an adaptation of European modes and theories of design. Until recently, this historic fabric suffered from extraordinary neglect and dereliction. With suburbia expanding outwards in unplanned spasms, medieval, Georgian and Victorian Dublin has been the site of much insensitive building and of traffic engineering imposed in the name of progress.

Published by Gandon Editions