The suggestion that NCAD might move from the Liberties to the UCD campus has provoked controversy. Here director Colm Ó Briain sets out what the college needs for the 21st century.
The Irish Times magazine recently (April 1st) featured the latest in a long line of NCAD-educated award winners stretching back through the college's 260-year history. A stunning design by Tara Whelan, a third-year student from Cork, re-imagines the standard martini glass and evolves it into something more beautiful, and also more functional, than the original. It's a triumph of original thinking which takes an elegant tradition and changes it into something new and exciting, without losing sight of its meaning, its associations or its past.
Tara's success stands as a metaphor for the kind of alchemy that the college as a whole is trying to perfect as it seeks a firm base for its future. NCAD's quest for the kind of space and resources that will enable it to develop to its full potential has excited a lot of interest in recent weeks. There have been fears that the college will move away from its roots, will abandon its vision, that it could lose its independence altogether.
None of these unhappy scenarios will come to pass. NCAD has held and will hold exploratory talks with the HEA, with UCD, with Dublin City Council, with the Digital Hub Development Agency, with everyone and anyone who has something solid and positive to contribute to the task of finding a solution to the cramped situation from which NCAD currently operates. What the college won't consider is any scenario that would compromise its independence.
NCAD's independence was hard-won. Only in 1971, when it was more than 200 years old, did the college achieve statutory autonomy. Until then it was under the aegis of the Department of Education. And the college's subsequent control of its own budget is unique among art and design educators in Ireland, since all the others are part of larger general institutions of technology. This independence is precious, and will not be compromised. As far as the board, the staff and the students are concerned, NCAD's autonomy is sacrosanct.
No college is an island, however, and independence does not preclude close co-operation. NCAD makes strategic alliances for mutual advantage. For example, in 2005 we joined with UCD, TCD, DCU and DLIADT - ostensibly our "rivals" - to work together on the National Digital Research Centre, the successor to MediaLab Europe. Constructive dialogue with organisations such as these enables NCAD to break out of traditional institutional confines in the pursuit of a better future for art and design.
The nature of the college's relationship with UCD has excited debate recently, some of it suggesting that the university is an overbearing suitor, pressuring NCAD into compromising its virtue. This is far from the truth. Neither is NCAD trying to sell itself to the highest bidder in return for a secure future.
THE REALITY IS less lurid and more mundane. NCAD and UCD have been closely aligned for more than a decade. In 1995 NCAD voted to enter the university sector and become a recognised college of NUI, so that its students would receive university degrees. The mechanism for joining NUI involves sponsorship from an existing member, and this role was fulfilled for NCAD by UCD (which, incidentally, also has the same relationship with the Royal College of Surgeons).
As part of this relationship, all NCAD courses are validated by UCD. This involves the two institutions in ongoing academic discussion. Through this mechanism UCD became aware of NCAD's infrastructural problems, and proposed that a solution might lie in co-location.
The reality is that NCAD's Thomas Street premises are worn out and are inadequate to provide the infrastructure necessary to fulfil NCAD's vision for a 21st-century institution or to keep the college at the forefront of art and design education.
NCAD's vision for itself is that of an independent entity benchmarked against other leading art and design colleges across Europe and North America. As Tara Whelan's success, and that of many of her fellow students, shows, NCAD's graduates have no difficulty in establishing themselves in those contexts. But the facilities bear no comparison at all. The potential and talent of the ever-increasing numbers of young people living in Ireland who want to pursue studies in art and design is in grave danger of being limited by cramped quarters and tired equipment. Our current space has become exhausted, and we must find room in which to expand our creativity and our thinking.
At the time when UCD's suggestion was made, the future in Thomas Street looked particularly bleak. A Campus Development Plan, completed in 2001 after years of preparation, required the acquisition of nearby property. This process was slow and in mid-2005 was bogged down. The HEA advised in 2002 that any development of the Thomas Street campus would have to be by public-private partnership (PPP), with no public money upfront.
Consultants engaged by NCAD put the cost of the Campus Development Plan at €76 million, and then in 2004 the Kelly Committee, set up by the Department of Education and Science to review and prioritise capital projects in the higher education sector, looked for further economic evaluation. It gave no final recommendation on the issue, leaving the Plan effectively in limbo. Even where there was money for minor works on the Thomas Street campus, planning issues were stymieing development. Another project on which the Kelly Committee also made no decision - the development of Grangegorman by DIT - has since been given the go-ahead, and does not require a public-private partnership, but NCAD's proposal remains in abeyance.
Into this depressing morass stepped UCD. The university's offer of a greenfield site has merits and advantages, including the possibility of closer liaison with the School of Architecture and the opportunity to move into purpose-built premises. (The move to Thomas Street was a compromise when undertaken in 1980, the preferred option being new-build on Morehampton Road in Donnybrook.)
UCD's offer also has demerits and disadvantages, such as moving away from the vibrancy of the inner city and the relationships that the college has built there.
UCD's offer came literally days before the property situation in Thomas Street eased. NCAD now owns all the land it needs to fulfil the Campus Development Plan. Several Cork-based members of the NCAD board, well aware of the painful PPP process relating to the premises of the Cork School of Music, were very uncomfortable with putting all of the art and design college's eggs in the basket of a possible public-private partnership, especially in the absence of clear guidance from the HEA. As a result, the Board decided to start a process of imagining a move to purpose-built facilities in Belfield, and to seek costings. This cautious and exploratory move was misinterpreted as a done deal, and protests began.
Nothing in this scenario is a done deal, or even a likelihood. The only immutable facts are that NCAD's facilities must be expanded and upgraded significantly, as soon as possible, and that its independence must be maintained. Both the upgrading of Thomas Street and a move to Belfield are simply possibilities. Perhaps there are others, more advantageous than either of these.
IT IS ESSENTIAL that the decision-making is based on the best interests of the future of education in art and design. Debate about the future of NCAD is not just a piece of middle-class self-indulgence. The numbers of potential students from all backgrounds hammering on NCAD's doors seeking admission continues to rise. Nor is it about art and design engaging with the changing realities of the 21st century solely in economic terms, or as a leisure pursuit with a rationale that has relevance only to the tourist industry. In its 35 years of autonomy, NCAD has played a significant role in the transformation of Irish culture. It has led the renaissance of self-confidence in all fields of visual endeavour, adding to our island's traditional excellence in verbal and musical expression, and it has much to contribute to the emergence of new ways of expressing what it means to live on this island at this time.
It is playing a critical role in the emergence of up-to-date visual education. It is engaging directly with communities, both local and further afield. It is contributing to art research and the development of a new kind of confidence in art practice. It has a lot to give to the process of change and regeneration of Irish culture.
To achieve its potential and play its part NCAD needs physical, intellectual and mental space and best-quality facilities. The college also needs autonomy and independence, the opportunity to imagine and to create. Each element is essential, and none is negotiable.
The solution that is chosen in the end will be the one that most ably fulfils these requirements. The future of art and design education in the country requires no less.
Prof Colm Ó Briain is director of the National College of Art and Design
