The Viking Centre

The Viking Centre

1996 - 1999 / €6.6 m. / Temple Bar Properties

This ensemble of buildings was acquired by Temple Bar Properties in 1990. Its use as the Viking Centre had been identified in Dublin Corporation Development Plan as a strategic development which was seen as providing a catalyst for stimulating change in the derelict sites along the backbone of Temple Bar.

The brief was to provide a variety of accommodations containing formal and interactive exhibition spaces which would be linked through the existing buildings in a specific circulation sequence. The spaces had to incorporate air conditioning, security, and communication systems to allow for flexibility for changing exhibitions in the future. The starting point for the design was to be a combination of the brief, the existing building themselves and their unique history.

The provision of residential accommodation on the site was paramount to the brief. Apartments are located along the North Eastern edge of the site along Exchange Street Lower. This location allowed for views North and West along the River Liffey while allowing south facing balcony areas to the privacy of the internal courtyard. The accommodation (16 No. apartments) is made up of a series of two and three bedroom apartments with duplex penthouses at roof level.

The architectural sensibility of the project was to seek an integration of this programme and make it compatible to the existing context. We have therefore conceived the project as a "suspended museum" contained within the restored fabric of the existing buildings to allow the public to experience history not just as book learning, but as the presence of the past brought alive by archaeology. We have attempted to find a new relationship between these distinct individual buildings and the objects that they will contain. The buildings should be enjoyed physically through movement as much as visually, as user/participants explore what is an interpretation of selected aspects of this place.

Two important factors emerged in the final design. Firstly, that any intervention should be clearly seen for what it is and viewed separately from the existing building. Secondly, that any intervention into these existing buildings will be treated as an installation and must be capable of being removed and the space restored a later date to the original state. Indeed, the whole design approach should be flexible to allow the spaces to be used in a variety of ways both now and in the future.