The Stage

Dublin’s docklands to receive 2000-seat ‘iconic’ arts centre

Published Friday 4 June 2004 at 10:20 by Anthony Garvey

A 2,000-seat performing arts centre, described as “an iconic masterpiece”, is to be one of the key features of a 475 million euro development in Dublin’s docklands.

The centre will be designed by one of the world’s leading architects, Daniel Libeskind, the man chosen to redevelop New York’s World Trade Centre, in the aftermath of September 11. His other signature projects include the Spiral Extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Imperial War Museum in Manchester and the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

The Dublin project, announced on May 28 by the city’s Docklands Development Authority, will include a shopping mall, hotel and offices. In a recent competition for development proposals, the authority had specified that the performing arts centre should be “a landmark building of outstanding artistic merit”.

Mr Libeskind has promised to deliver that with a futuristic, wedge-shaped building which, he says, “will show how architecture can act as a magnet for the public”. It would be “a very beautiful building, illuminated night and day, and would be like a diamond set in a public place”. In designing the centre, he said, he wanted to create a sense of civic ambience and space while reflecting “the complexity of Dublin”.

According to the docklands authority, the development is due to be completed by 2007. The arts centre will be operated by Clear Channel, the entertainment management company which runs a number of similar facilities in the UK. A company spokesman said it would be used for big shows such as Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King, as well as for local productions.

Ironically, the site on which the arts centre is to be built had been offered free to the Irish national theatre for a new Abbey building. But the move, which many at the Abbey favoured, was torpedoed when Taoisech Bertie Ahern let it be known that he wanted the theatre to remain on its traditional Abbey Street site, on the city’s northside, which also happens to be in his constituency.

At last week’s press conference, when the chief executive of the Docklands Development Authority, Peter Coyne, was asked if he regretted the loss of the Abbey, he replied: “Not now we don’t.”

Meanwhile, arts minister John O’Donoghue told parliament last week that he would decide before the end of what is the Abbey’s centenary year whether it is to be redeveloped on its existing site - a plan which has been beset by problems of lack of space and difficulties in acquiring adjacent buildings - or moved to a new location, possibly on O’Connell Street.