Temple Bar's Arthouse and Viking Adventure Centre have closed, and arts groups are clamouring for space. In this era of healthy change and 'cultural Darwinism', what's the next move for Dublin's cultural quarter? Louise East reports.
At first glance, the sign taped to the side door of Arthouse - "Closed Until Further Notice" - looks like it could be part of an exhibition in the multimedia and digital arts centre. But inside, the computers have been switched off and the only media attention is newspaper reports marvelling at how one of the brightest stars of the Temple Bar cultural quarter became so tarnished it had to close with debts of more than €400,000.
It's not the only closed sign in the area either; earlier in the year, the Viking Adventure Centre, operated by Dublin Tourism out of the converted Saints Michael and John church on Essex Street West, ceased trading too. Contributing to the air of unease in the area, was the announcement, last week, that Tambra Dillon, the popular general manager of Temple Bar Properties (TBP) is leaving the post after just two years (although for entirely unrelated personal reasons).
The two closures have caused a lot of anxious speculation among arts organisations in the area - as one organisation director puts it: "There's been a lot of awful talk about who's next for the chop." In the early 1990s, Arthouse was a symbol of the kind of shiny purpose-built, arts venues that would put not just Temple Bar, but Dublin and Ireland on the cultural map.
Unsurprisingly, its closure has prompted an end-of-the-era style of introspection. That it shut up shop in summer was also unfortunate; by July, the hordes of restless and rowdy tourists were at their height and all the old grievances about the number of pubs, restaurants and cafes (99 in total) in an area designated Dublin's cultural quarter, re-surfaced.
Yet as is so often the way with Temple Bar, the failures are only half of the story. Submissions were invited for the Saints Michael and John building, and not only did two of the proposals come from existing Temple Bar arts organisations already operating at capacity, but a further four directors of Temple Bar cultural institutions, contacted by The Irish Times, said they would be interested in expanding due to the popularity of their programmes. It hardly adds up to a picture of arts in crisis. On the ground, the beer and brawling was counterpointed by an admirable summer-long arts programme, including the Diversions festival with its free outdoor screenings of movies; the Twenty-first Century Circus clowning extravaganza; and the screening, for only the third time internationally, of artist Mathew Barney's entire Cremaster Cycle.
Even the closures have a flipside. TBP has indicated that the two buildings will retain their cultural purpose, opening up the possibility of the area's cultural fabric getting a good wash and brush-up. In the arts community at least, few tears were shed over the loss of the Dublin Viking Adventure Centre, despite the £5.5 million (just under €7 million) it originally cost in Exchequer and EU funding.
The Saints Michael and John church was built on the foundations of the Smock Alley Theatre, Ireland's first theatre which operated between 1662 and 1790. Many felt it should have had a more arts-oriented purpose all along.
What that purpose will be is not yet clear. A committee, comprised of Eithne Healy, representing the TBP board and the arts; Frank Murray, architect and structural engineer; John Faley, Dublin City Council's acting chief valuer and Tambra Dillon, general manager of Temple Bar Properties, was appointed some months ago. The Arts Council was invited to be on the committee but decided to take an advisory role, and submissions were requested via newspaper advertisements. Dillon says a candidate has met the criteria set by the committee, and an architectural feasibility study has been carried out, but final confirmation regarding the building's future use will not be announced until early October.
Until then, no proposal has been ruled out and their contents remain confidential, but Mark Mulqueen, director of the Irish Film Centre, has confirmed that a preliminary architectural study into converting the former church into a two-screen cinema venue with archive space was deemed feasible. "We're not committed as yet. It would firstly be a matter for the Film Institute Board to decide, and then for the people at TPB as well as other key agencies. But it could be very exciting for us." Mulqueen confirmed the expansion would be reliant on Arts Council funding and pointed out that a comprehensive feasibility study and an operational plan would need to be in place before they would commit to expansion.
Further proposals were submitted by the Gaiety School of Acting, and the Improvised Music Company (IMC), the company behind the ESB Dublin Jazz Festival. Rough Magic theatre company have also had talks with TBP but did not make a formal submission.
Patrick Sutton, director of the Gaiety School of Acting (with branches in Dublin, Cork and Kerry), says the school has no performance space, which he describes as a "vital component that's missing". He indicated to TBP in his presentation that he was willing to dove-tail his submission with that of the IMC, who also wish to create a performance space.
Gerry Godley, director of the IMC, put a comprehensive proposal to TBP for a music centre, to include a performance venue, rehearsal and training space and archive. The centre would cater for musicians he describes as "fellow travellers" - jazz, traditional Irish music, world music, and processed music.
That all the submissions include some kind of performance space has much to do with the lofty proportions of the Saints Michael and John building. However, it also highlights a shortage of small- to medium-sized venues in the city. Godley has had to postpone this year's ESB Jazz Festival because Vicar Street, its usual home, is closed for renovations, and when it re-opens it will have increased in capacity from 600 to 900. The economics of size encourage promoters to use and build large venues, leaving small theatre companies, musicians and dance companies stuck for venues of a size suitable to a niche audience. Pubs have traditionally hosted traditional music, comedy, and fringe theatre.
However, as Eric Fraad, the director of one of Temple Bar's great success stories, The Ark children's cultural centre points out: "In one way [the Saints Michael and John] is a perfect performance venue, but too many venues have opened up in this country without people really looking at how they're going to survive. The Arts Council isn't going to fund them all . . .That's a large space and it's going to eat up money."
Tambra Dillon of TBP says the three main criteria for finding new tenants for the Saints Michael and John and Arthouse spaces were planning and development of the Temple Bar area, genuine cultural purpose and the financial and management structure.
Certain buildings have been designated for "cultural use" in line with the 1991 Temple Bar Development Plan, and the conditions laid down by the European Regional Development Fund, which has ploughed over €22 million into the area to date (Exchequer funding stands at over €25 million). Buildings designated for cultural purposes can avail of a subsidised rent. But the closure of Arthouse is a cautionary tale about the kind of problems an organisation can run into when that "cultural use" gets entangled with commerce.
Eyebrows were raised when it was revealed that Arthouse had received an offer from telecommunications company Esat for five-year sponsorship worth €1.9 million. Although the sponsorship might have saved it, TBP would not allow it to accept the offer. Dillon points out that the proposal (believed to involve the conversion of exhibition space into an Internet café) was "fundamentally commercial in nature and contrary to the intended cultural purpose of the building". Yet with annual Arts Council funding of only €244,000, Arthouse had to look for private enterprise support.
Paddy Gunning is the director of the Temple Bar Music Centre (TBMC), which rents rehearsal space to some 75 bands each week, trains 250 full-time and part-time students, and has a performance venue that is constantly busy despite its accoustic shortcomings. The TBMC does not receive Arts Council funding, and Gunning says "For an organisation to work, it has to be independent. To be independent, it has to have a commercial aspect. If you don't, you've got to fund it at a national level, and that just isn't happening in this country."
As Tanya Kiang, director of the Gallery of Photography in Meeting House Square points out, some commercial element is by no means a bad thing in an arts organisation. "Why didn't Arthouse have a shop, for example? People feel comfortable with a bit of retail; it gets them through the doorsThere's a lot of cachet in being cutting edge and difficult, but you never get credit for attracting visitors. There's no reason why an arts organisation shouldn't be of interest to ordinary people and we've kind of lost sight of that."
Most people would now accept that Arthouse's problem was one of identity. The space was originally built with the Sculpture Society in mind and Arthouse has always occupied the space uneasily. In addition, it had to establish itself as a multi-media and digital arts centre at a time when most of the population, artists included, only had a vague idea as to what that meant.
Despite its value as a showpiece when the Government wanted to lure software companies into Ireland, Arthouse never really hardened up its edges in the popular perception. Ironically, when technological awareness did rise it was accompanied by a fall in the price of the kind of vastly expensive software packages it was Arthouse's role to provide, rendering it even more redundant.
TBP will shortly invite proposals for the future use of three floors of Arthouse, currently comprised of performance, gallery and café spaces, but it will take some time before the cultural landscape in Temple Bar settles. Although there is some sadness over Arthouse's demise, most people point out that Temple Bar was designated a cultural quarter a little over 10 years ago, and some change - what The Ark's Eric Fraad describes as "cultural Darwinism" - is both likely and healthy.
Hope is tentatively expressed that lessons will be learned and mistakes will be replaced with more positive contributions to the cultural landscape, although, as one director mournfully points out, a key corner of Temple Bar Square has recently been renovated and turned into yet another a bar.
Over the years, Temple Bar Properties has served as the all-purpose whipping boy in the area, at times deservedly, at others counter-productively. As the Irish Film Centre's Mark Mulqueen points out: "People seem to forget that virtually everything in Temple Bar works, whether it's a cultural institute, a pub, a shop, a theatre or whatever. It's hugely successful. All this spin that Temple Bar is in trouble is hugely inaccurate. In the bluntest of terms, it's a prime piece of real estate."
Regardless of its success or otherwise, it's clear that not just Temple Bar Properties, but Temple Bar itself, are heading into a period of change that is less about new buildings and more about adaptation and consolidation. TBP, which was set up as a development company under the Department of the Environment and Local Government, now answers to Dublin City Council. With the two main building phases envisaged in the 1991 development plan completed plans are afoot to set up a new company, run along the lines of a Business Improved District company (BID). The new company would be responsible for raising money from local stakeholders to provide services the businesses themselves would govern, while TBP would take a back seat and estate manage its considerable property portfolio of €64 million.
Before announcing her departure, TBP's Tambra Dillon said that for her, the two most pressing issues facing Temple Bar are to work out "how the various governing authorities and stakeholders can work together to maintain an appropriate balance of the mix and use of the area" and to manage expectations. "There are two perceptions of Temple Bar - the national and the international. Internationally, Temple Bar's perception exceeds reality. It is considered to be one of the, if not the, most notable urban renewal projects. Nationally, Temple Bar could be said to be a victim of its own success, and that is a hard reality to manage."
