FIRST PRIZE-Ruairí O'Brien-Competition for a European Cultural and Educational centre "Meeting Point Music Messiaen" in Zgorzelec, Poland

Photo: The present entrance to the "Meeting Point Messiaen" on the site of the Stalag VIIIa

FIRST PRIZE
"MEETING POINT MESSIAEN"
in Zgorzelec, Poland

I am very happy to confirm that we have recieved the first prize for our design for a new European cultural centre in Zgorzelec Poland. The city of Zgorzelec is a situated across the river Neisse from Görlitz in East Germany. The competition was to design a museum building, a "Theater Barracks" for live music performances (named so after the original barracks where Messiaen gave concerts for his fellow prisioners) and living quaters for artists on the site of a prisoner of war camp dating from World War II. Olivier Messiaen wrote one of his most famous pieces of music "Quartet for the end of Time" during his time as a prisoner in "Stalag VIIIa".

The Polish and German text announcing the the result is included below.
Ruairí O'Brien, 25. june. 2009 Dresden.

The Polish text:

OGŁOSZENIE WYNIKÓW KONKURSUNA OPRACOWANIE KONCEPCJI URBANISTYCZNO - ARCHITEKTONICZNEJI FUNKCJONALNO - UŻYTKOWEJEUROPEJSKIEGO CENTRUM EDUKACYJNO - KULTURALNEGO ZGORZELE/GOERLITZMEETINGPOINT MUSIC MESSIAENS

ąd Konkursowy na posiedzeniu w dniu 24 czerwca 2009 r. w Zgorzelcu, po zapoznaniu się z pracami konkursowymi dokonał wyboru najlepszej pracy konkursowej i postanowił przyznać pracy opatrzonej kodem 899678.

Autorem nagrodzonej pracy jest:

RUAIRI O BRIEN. ARCHITEKTUR. LICHT. KUNST.

Jednocześnie Sąd Konkursowy serdecznie dziękuje wszystkim uczestnikom konkursu za zaangażowanie i wyraża uznanie za pomysłowość i szeroką znajomość problematyki.

Sąd Konkursowy

The German Text:

DIE VERÖFFENTLICHUNG DER ERGEBNISSE DESWETTBEWERBSZUR AUSARBEITUNG EINER STÄDTEBAULICH- ARCHITEKTONISCHENNUTZUNGS+ PROGRAMMKONZEPTION FÜR DASEUROPÄISCHE ZENTRUM FÜR BILDUNG UND KULTURZGORZELEC/GOERLITZMEETINGPOINT MUSIC MESSIAEN

In der Sitzung am 24 Juni 2009 in Zgorzelec hat das Preisgericht, nachdem es sich mit allen Wettbewerbsarbeiten vertraut gemacht hat, die beste Wettbewerbsarbeit ausgewählt und entschieden, an die Arbeit mit Verfasserkennzahl 899678 zu verleihen.

Der Autor der preisgekrönten Arbeit ist

RUAIRI O BRIEN. ARCHITEKTUR. LICHT. KUNST.

Gleichzeitig bedankt sich das Preisgericht bei allen Wettbewerbsteilnehmern für Ihr Engagement und spricht seine Achtung für ihre Kreativität und die umfangreichen Kenntnisse zur Problematik aus.

Preisgericht

Here a link to Youtube for a short presentation of the

"Quartet for the end of Time"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSdXitBkFb0

Architecture Summer VI-Lecture-House Evolucio

On Sunday, 28th of June, Ruairí O'Brien gave a short presentation about the House Evolucio he designed as part of the Architecture summer and Day of architecture in Saxony.

Such an event allows one to talk directly to people who are interested in architecture in general, but it is also important because it gives prospective clients the chance to see the office and discuss in a relaxed atmoshere what it means to build a house. The house "evolucio" developed and built to offer clients a simple and relatively inexpensive way to achieve a personally defined architecture.

Dresden. 28.06.09

Architecture Summer V -Lecture- Hologram facade-stadtspeicher Jena

Lecture: Hologram facade Jena

Architecture Summer V.

27.June.2009

As part of the Architecture Summer festival Ruairí O'Brien gave a public lecture in the office on Saturday morning.

Mobile Architecture II-Erich Kaestner Rally and The Perspective Machine

Over 300 children took part in the "Emil and the Detectives" in the city Erich Kaestner Rally on the 25th of June. The mobile perspective machines designed and built by Ruairí O'Brien were also in action accompanying the children on the parcours through the city. Children took the chance to use them to capture new perspectives of the city and do drawings of the streets and buildings of Dresden. Children using the mobile perspective machines to draw on the famous "Augustus brücke" in the city center of Dresden.

Architecture Summer IV

Exhibition architecture lecture and workshop

Himmelweit gleich – Europas 1989

III. Workshop in Dresden

(19 – 21 June, 2009)

- Wroclaw

- Praha
- Dresden

- Bratislava

- Dublin, an west east west story in light and structure by Ruairí O'Brien

At the weekend I was invited to give a lecture on "exhibition architecture" to a group of international students working on the project "Himmelweit" organised by the "Weiterdenken" society in Dresden and Historian Peter Skyba. The project was conceived to look at the changes 20 years on after the peaceful revolution of 1989 that changed the face of Europe. Last year I made a suggestion that I develop an artwork for the society that could represent the larger european dimension of the falling of the Iron curtain. this was then in spring of this year given the go ahead. The artwork/installation expresses my own viewpoint as an artist and architect as to the change I have experienced in my Europe since 1989. Coming originally from Dublin and having experienced the “falling of the wall” on British TV. in London this can be seen as offering a pendent to the eastern works covering this subject. My first work on this subject I called "Baustelle Deutschland" (1999) which is now in the permanent exhibition of "The House of Contemporary History in Leipzig". This was followed by the lightobject "Betreten auf eigene gefahr" or "Enter at your own risk" (2004) placed on the site of the "Plattenbaumuseum" I built in Dresden (2003).

10 Elements of Exhibition architecture-O'Brien '09

My view is a view from another angle, perhaps the far west angle.
The graphic published here is a working method I have developed to create contemporary exhibitions, in my lecture I went into more detail regarding each word and its function in relation to the other elements mentioned.

The project

"Dublin-West-East-West Story told in light and structure by Ruairí O'Brien"

will be exhibited in Autumn in Dresden. Exact details as to location and times will be published in september 2009 on this blog.

School project-"Stadt-Raum-Klang" finished

"Stadt-Raum-Klang" or "City-Space-Sound"

a project for the youth of the city of Freiberg

Ruairí O'Brien

I finished the school project "Stadt-Raum-Klang" in the city of Freiberg with a presentation of the work done on Wednesday the 17th of June. The project which had been running since early january of this year was very successful. The "City-Space-Sound" was created for the "Silbermann society" in Freiberg, the town of the world famous Orgel designer and builder. His orgels are some of the greatest in the world. The idea was to inspire the children to think about the identity of their home town and its sound, its spirit in relationship to themselves. We experimented with sound and acoustics and the architectural space required to achieve certain sounds and relating that back to rooms in the school and streets and squares in the town. We sketched and built cardboard instruments, created performances, analysed structures found in other art forms such as film etc. We also visited the orgel in the Main church of freiberg and were given a guided tour and demonstration by the Domkantor.

Over the last weeks the school children (teenagers) had been working on the idea of creating a collage sculpture with a shoebox which should express their individual personality and sound. As part of the final presentation the school kids were asked to create a larger structure out of their individual works on which they had been working.

The parts create the whole.

see: http://www.stadt-raum-klang.blogspot.com/

Mobile architecture I

Mobile architecture

Architecture summer in Dresden III

Sunday the 14th of June.
We organised a fundraising event for our "Kästnermobil" a mobile exhibition system designed by Ruairí O'Brien to bring the famous German autor to the schools.

The project is in co-operation with the Erich kästner museum in Dresden and the erich Kästner society based in Munich. A further partner is the Deutsche Werkstäaten in Hellerau, Dresden.

Lighting Festival in Leipzig 2009- Lichtfest 2009-Aufbruch Leipzig

Ruairí O'Brien has been invited by the city of Leipzig to take part in their lighting festival to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the „peaceful revolution“ which occurred in 1989 in East Germany. Above is a city plan with a list of the artists taking part and showing where the works can be experienced. Ruairí O'Brien'swork which is a combination of communication architecture and light art will be installed in the “Hansa” house, a famous heritage building situated next to the “Nikolaikkirche”, the church where the famous “Monday demonstrations” began. The installation or "information sculpture" is a personal statement about communication and the moment "89". It will also provide an exhibition platform about the history of the "Monday demonstrations" and information about the other particpants, supporters and fellow artists taking part in the festival program. It is due to be opened the beginning of August so that visitors to the city and local citizens can begin to focus on the events to come.