Gilroy McMahon Architects

Collins Barracks

National Museum of Ireland 1994 - 1995 (Phase 1 €9.5m)

The National Museum of Ireland secured Collins Barracks, Ireland's largest and Europe's oldest military barracks in early 1994. The goal of the project was to convert the 7500m2 into fully flexible 21st century Museum space, incorporating the highest quality air control, security and communication systems and to allow flexibility for changing exhibitions in the future.

Phase 1 - the conversion of two sides of the magnificent Clarke Square ( a former parade ground) - is designed to operate initially as a self-contained entity, as well as to illustrate the strategy and act as a catalyst for the whole project.

Externally the design strategy was to transform a defensive building complex into an accessible public facility. Links were re-established through the barracks from north to south from the Arbour Hill area to the public park on the banks of the River Liffey. All the public assembly functions of the museum, the audio-visual room, the children's education rooms, the community meeting room, the bookshop and the café are located at ground level to open onto the "living square"

Internally, the challenge lay in reconciling the needs of a highly serviced modern museum within the shell of a three-hundred year old building. Although the existing barracks had few architectural flourishes, it is this very robustness and repetition that gives the buildings their powerful atmosphere. These qualities largely determined the nature of the intervention. We recognised that the transformation into a museum had to be effected by both enhancing and contrasting with the existing.