It is a real measure of the wealth of architectural talent in Ireland today that such significant buildings as the Guinness Storehouse, the Project arts centre in Temple Bar and W5, the recently opened science centre in Belfast's Odyssey complex don't feature in this year's RIAI Regional Awards.
Along with 46 other projects such as the Warehouse apartments off Clanbrassil Street and the Old Distillery mixed-use complex on North Ann Street, north of the Four Courts, they are merely included in the exhibition. Yet the number of awards, at 29, is the highest ever given since the scheme was inaugurated 12 years ago.
The aim, as ever, is to convey the range and quality of work done by Irish architects at home and abroad during the past year. No attempt is made to identify a "building of the year"; as the RIAI's director, John Graby, points out, "such judgments are for the future" when new buildings can be considered more maturely.
The importance of the regional awards, chosen by a panel of assessors chaired by Liam Tuite, is that "immediate recognition is given to good architecture in the year of its completion". And thanks to sponsorship from Roadstone, the public will have an opportunity to see the exhibition at 20 venues over the next several months.
Two architectural practices, deBlacam and Meagher and Murray O'Laoire, scooped three awards each - nearly a quarter of the total. And the Architectural Services of the Office of Public Works did equally well. All are illustrated in a comprehensive catalogue included in the Irish Architectural Review, published by Gandon Editions.
de Blacam and Meagher won for Esat's glass-fronted headquarters on Grand Canal Quay. The assessors thought it was both restrained and sophisticated, making good use of a difficult site.
Quite predictably, de Blacam and Meagher also won an award for the Wooden Building in the west end of Temple Bar, which was described as "beautifully crafted...illustrating extreme assurance in the handling of materials and architectural detail". Its landmark quality would have been much enhanced had it been higher, as originally intended.
Less well-known is their "restrained and assured" office conversion of a 19th century warehouse on the Grand Canal Dock into Treasury Holdings, retaining as much of its fabric as possible. According to Treasury's Richard Barrett, "tenant satisfaction levels are the highest we have ever seen" and it will be followed by several similar projects.
Murray O'Laoire's three awards were for the Irish Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hanover, the UCD Student Centre and the renovation of Cork opera House. Of the de-mountable pavilion, designed in collaboration with Orna Hanly, the assessors said it had demonstrated "accomplished Irish design and use of materials in an international setting".
They described the highly-successful Student Centre in Belfield as a robust building which "deftly uses strong forms and resilient materials to create spaces entirely appropriate to their function".
For the Cork Opera House renovation, Murray O'Laoire were applauded for their "inventive response" to a difficult brief, which had reinvigorated the original, much-criticised 1960s building, opening it up to a new civic plaza on Emmet Place. And so far, only the first phase of a 10-year development programme has actually been completed.
The quite remarkable renovation of another dull building, the 1972 ACC House on the corner of Hatch Street and Harcourt Street, won an award for Gilroy McMahon Architects because of the way in which it had been "transformed and revitalised [to] energise its urban context". But then, aim was to create "an elegant piece of urbanism".
The third renovation to win an award was the Schuh building on Lower O'Connell Street, by Oppermann Architecture, which the assessors described as "a lesson in how to place a contemporary facade design on an important and historic street" - elevation replacd the unspeakable Burgerland building.
Also on the retail front, Mary Donohoe Architects' work for Blue Eriu, in Wicklow Street, a shop specialising in what Ab Fab's Patsy would describe "gorgeous things" - cosmetics, aromatherapy, perfumes, candles, exotic flowers and music - was cited as "sophisticated and accomplished ...shop-fitting as architecture".
Inevitably , Bucholz McEvoy Architects won awards for Fingal County Hall in Swords (designed in collaboration with BDP Dublin), which the assessors described as "an assured and technically innovative public building ", as well as for their "beautifully detailed and executed" Welcoming Pavilions at Government Buildings in Merrion Street.
Swords features again, with an award for the Old Borough School and Parish Centre, designed by Paul Keogh Architects, which the assessors described as "an extremely well-considered building of modest and well-handled materials which respects and enhances its setting" on a disused quarry beside the town's round tower and medieval keep.
Leinster House 2000, the new building adjoining the Houses of the Oireachtas, won an award for the OPW's Architectural Services, in collaboration with Donnellly Turpin Architects and Paul Arnold Architects, because of their "sensitive and skillful handling of a large building volume", inserted quite unobtrusively into a difficult historic setting.
Hunt McGarry Architects were praised for their winning entry in an Esat Digifone competition for the design of a telecommunications structure, which "turned a modern, essential function into art". But whether the aesthetic appeal of this outwardly tapering, luminescent ringed tower will help to offset public fears is an open question.
Not to be outdone, Scott Tallon Walker's Network Management Centre for Eircom at City West also won an award for the "consistency and quality of its detailing" and the way it had created a "significant landmark building" in the motorway setting of the N7. Certainly , no-one could miss its totemlike 30m-high telecommunications mast.
Scott Tallon Wlaker won a second award for the Cityibank office block, in the IFSC, which was described by the assessors as "corporate architecture at its international best" which also responded to its site on the Liffey quays.
The Liffey Boardwalk, by McGarry Ni Eanaiagh Architects, was also bound to be recognised in this year's RIAI awards as "a radical and important piece of urban intervention" which had made "a singular contribution to the living city". Some people obviously disagree; it's hardwood handrail and coffee bars are now scarred by grafitti.
A+D Wejchert's new Cemetery Building at Newlands Cross was cited for its "well-constructed plan following a distinct spatial sequence", with stone, metal and light "well used to give gravitas and restfulness". Its circular cloistered "meeting ring", broken to symbolise man's finite lifespan, is one of three interlocking pavilions surrounded by gardens.
On a higher note, Belfast's latest in-spot, TATU on Lisburn Road, deservedly won an award for Box Architects, no least because of the drama of its generous double-height space. As the assessors noted, it is "a wonderfully controlled and exciting bar design which exploits volume and materials to a degree well above the ordinary".
The only other northern award went to Dublin-based architects MdCullough Mulvin for their "finely and lightly detailed" civic offices which "seem to float on their bogland site" on the outskirts of Dungloe, Co Donegal. The new building serves as a "one-stop shop" for county council services and is one of five planned to "decentralise" administration.
McCullogh Mulvin won a second award for the Model Arts and Niland Gallery in Sligo, which the assessors praised for its "controlled use of a broad palette of materials, spatial awareness and intelligent, inventive response" to the transformation for a 19th century model school. Indeed, they wen t so far as to describe it as "exceptional".
A similar problem confronted Des Byrne, of the OPW's Architectural Services, in extending Turlough Park House outside Castlebar, Co Mayo to accommodate the National Museum's Irish Country Life collection. But his "bold and dramatic" modern building had enhanced the Victorian Gothic house and created "a wonderful public facility".
Much more modest in scale is another Mayo award-winner, the Michael Davitt Museum in Straide. Designed by Angela Rolfe and Edel Collins, of the OPW's Architectural Services, it reinstates a simple T-shaped 18th century penal church and gives it a new use "through skilled design and use of materials", as the citation puts it.
A record third award for architecture in the county went to Taylor Architects for the May o Education Centre, built on the campus of the Galway-Mayo institute of Technology in Castlebar. What impressed the assessors was its "attractive plan form, followed through by fine detailing and the use of simple materials".
O'Donnell and Tuomey Architects won the final western award for their Furniture College in Letterfrack, Co Galway, which is the first phase of a development strategy for the once-notorious industrial school. "Paradoxically both modest an heroic, these buildings are now comfortably set in a beautiful landscape", according to the assessors.
The only eastern award-winner is the Carlow Tourist Office and Gallery by Studio M Architects. Located in the heart of a proposed "cultural quarter" in Carlow town, it involved refurbishing part of a former Presentation convent and was praised for the "sensitive, dramatic and well-detailed modern space" behind its modest facade.
Housing hardly features in this year's awards, though John Dorman Architects were hailed for their "marvellous reinterpretation of the Irish bungalow in the landscape" with a low-slung weekend house in Ballyconneely, Co Galway.
Its lightness and feeling for scale showed that "bungalows and architecture are not mutually exclusive".
An "ingenious answer" to the common city problem of restricted space was pro9vided by Hasset Ducatez Architects in their small extension (just 11 sq m) to a Victorian house in Dublin 8. Like no other, it provides a new family room with a pivoted glass door and a terrace on top enclosed by opal glass walls that positively glow in the dark.
Finally, Magee Creedon Architectects won an award for the second phase of Cross Court in Cork, a scheme which aims to reinstate the intensity of medieval street patterns in a modern idiom. According to the citation, this high density model showed that "architectural thought can reinvest the old city with new life".
The RIAI Regional awards exhibition continues at the Architecture Centre, 8 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. Telephone: 01 676 1703.
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