Theatre to restore heart of Tallaght

THE most important thing about the new Civic Theatre in Tallaght is not just that it provides a major cultural facility for south and west Dublin; it is also, very deliberately, the flagship project for ambitious plans to recreate the town centre.

At present, the middle of Tallaght consists of a disaggregated series of buildings laid out almost like an industrial estate, with each one in its own railed compound. It is also an area dominated by roads, traffic and acres of surface car-parking.

South Dublin County Council wants to change most of this by creating a sequence of pedestrian-friendly streets and squares. "We see the Civic Theatre as the first of the big moves in the formulation of that urban sequence and as an anchor for it," says Eddie Conroy, deputy county architect.

The first priority for Mr Conroy and his design team was the "urban business", as he puts it, of making a new square - to be known as Millennium Square - by creating a building that would become an attraction by day and by night, a beacon of the county council's aspirations for the area.

It would also assist in enclosing the small, rather windswept square in front of the Civic Offices - in effect, by redefining it as two interlinked squares, with a mature oak tree (imported from the Netherlands) as a sort of leafy pivot; it has been planted to mark the centenary of Irish local government.

On the opposite side is the County Library, reputedly an excellent facility much loved by its readers. Built as part of the Civic Offices project, it is unfortunately housed in a building which resembles a large, L-shaped bungalow; its scale is wrong for the grand civic gestures now being planned.

To the south, where a large area of surface car-parking is located in front of The Square shopping centre, discussions are already under way about the provision of intervening buildings which would provide further containment. These are likely to have cafes at street level and apartments overhead.

One of the most unusual features of the theatre is that its foyer runs alongside the main auditorium. "In most theatres, you come in under the auditorium and go straight up a ramp as if you were boarding an aeroplane, whereas here you come into the foyer, go up the stairs and turn back. So there's a promenade effect".

The full-height glazed facade on the entrance front is intended as a "lightbox" which would literally glow at night. Through the glazing grid, passers-by see the people inside, circulating in the generous entrance foyer, going up and down the main staircase or drinking in the cafe-bar on the ground floor.

Though there is a huge difference of scale, Mr Conroy likens this aspect of the Civic Theatre to the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. "I couldn't get over it when I first saw the place last autumn. When you're inside, it's really grand - and the view over the river towards the blue neon lights winking from the weir is very memorable," he says.

Tallaght cannot offer any competition to the lapping waters of the Lagan, but there is a huge determination to connect the new theatre to the world outside. Its cafe-bar, for example, will be open during the day and it will even be possible to sit out under parasols in the plaza on sunny afternoons.

BUT it's at night-time that the building comes into its own. The glazed facade makes it "glow", showing off to colourful effect a three-part piece by Mairead Tobin, obviously inspired by theatre masks. There is also some beautiful etched glass work by Fiona Murphy, including a keyhole view of the square.

The theatre's huge fly-tower certainly takes the bare look off the county council's surface car-park. It was one of the key elements that survived a series of design changes when the project ran into budgetary problems; it gives the theatre more flexibility in terms of what it can put on the stage.

To pare the cost back to £3 million, the architects had to eliminate such "frills" as a fan-shaped main auditorium; as built, it is square, but with a balcony to make clear that it is a theatre rather than a multiplex cinema unit. The balcony also gives the actors "something to play to", as Mr Conroy says.

Red-painted walls clash with the wine-coloured seating, which is retractable to give a clear floor for dancing and other events. The colour of the walls is to be changed soon, according to the theatre's director, Brid Dukes. She says the space itself is so adaptable and can even be used for theatre-in-the-round.

The architects examined the idea of designing a "black-box" auditorium, such as the Beckett Theatre in Trinity College. But Mr Conroy maintains that this supposedly adaptable format would have required the building to be "re-programmed" every time it was used; that's why they opted for a conventional layout.

The narrow sides of the proscenium arch, coupled with the square floor plan, means that the Tallaght theatre can be used for promenade, catwalk and various other arrangements. Its capacity, at 320, is relatively small, but it comes with backstage facilities second to none - at least in the Dublin area.

The main auditorium is supplemented by a studio space known as the Loose End, a pun inspired by the planned Luas light rail terminus, which will be located nearby. Facing south-west with high-level corner windows which can be blacked out, this space has a capacity of up to 90 in reasonable comfort.

TALLAGHT'S Civic Theatre is a far cry from the type of facilities provided in the past - all those breeze-blocked, inward-looking "community centres" which still scar the landscape. However, some of the finishes could be better - real wood panelling for example, instead of cheaper veneer.

Eddie Conroy, who won an RIAI Regional Award in 1993 for the Kill Avenue Fire Station in Dun Laoghaire, says that when they first started work on the Tallaght project there were no reference points for small theatres of 300-500 capacity, other than the West Yorkshire Playhouse, in Leeds. Now there is a similar theatre in Hereford.

But South Dublin County Council saw no reason to hold an architectural competition for the Civic Theatre, or even to interview five or six firms from the private sector. "We had enough faith in our own architects' department and we've been vindicated by the result", says Pat Costello, the council's spokesman.

Externally, the Civic Theatre's glazed and white painted plaster finishes contrast quite sharply with the brick-clad and pitch-roofed Civic Offices and County Library; even the grey colour of its glazing bars is different. In every respect, it is a much more "urban" building, right up to its varied roof profile.

It will now be up to Dunloe Ewart plc, owners of The Square, to complement this new public cultural facility with buildings of equivalent stature, south of the Old Blessington Road; as it stands, the shopping centre represents the world turned outside in, however successful it may be as a retailing machine.

The county council has taken the first step. Its second step must be to free the theatre from the railed compound which now encloses it. Cafes and restaurants should follow, just as they did in Limerick when the Belltable Arts Centre first opened years ago, as Brid Dukes recalls. That, too, was arts-led urban renewal.