Modern building is true to its time

This year is the centenary of local government in Ireland, for it was in 1899 that power was transferred from the grand juries run by the landlord class to elected county councils. It is an important anniversary, which has been marked in Galway by the completion of its new County Hall, costing £9 million.

For more than 60 years, Galway County Council was housed in the former County Infirmary on Prospect Hill, occupying an elevated site with views out over the River Corrib and Galway Bay. Though refurbished and extended in 1934, it remained stubbornly redolent of the bad old days of the bell and hatch.

In 1994, the council decided to build a new County Hall on the site - not by using a "design and build" package, where the contractor would be in the driving seat, but rather by appointing its own architects; only in this way could the council be certain that it would have full control over the design and fit-out of the building.

Dublin-based architects A & D Wejchert won the commission and set out to design a contemporary building that would be true to its time. Some councillors were initially sceptical about the forthright modernism of the scheme, with one of them even describing it as a "monstrosity" - an opinion he could surely no longer hold.

Though some Galwegians regretted the loss of the former infirmary, the county manager, Donal O'Donoghue, believed that it had become "increasingly difficult for staff to function efficiently and provide an effective service in what was over-crowded and ill-equipped accommodation" and he championed its replacement.

Another difficulty was that the old County Buildings were located "smack in the middle" of the Prospect Hill site, as Andrzej Wejchert puts it, and this meant that there was very little room for expansion to the rear. "The council wanted the possibility of expansion and they are also dreaming about building a new library".

So the old buildings were demolished. However, because they contained so many memories, a decision was made to salvage the chunky limestone on its main front and reconstruct this wall to form one side of the atrium around which the new building is organised. The resulting contrast between old and new is very successful.

The reconstructed wall is also beautifully built, which is hardly surprising in a city that has "the best of the best stonemasons", as Dr Wejchert says. Connie McLoughlin, the site foreman for contractors Michael McNamara and Company, had also worked with him on the Ailwee Cave visitor centre in the Burren 20 years ago.

One of the architect's priorities was to "project an image of accountable democracy" by locating the council chamber at the front of the new building, making the point that the elected representatives take precedence over the administration - even though it still exercises much of the power under our system of local government.

It was also important to locate the building at the front of the site, not only to provide room for future expansion to the rear, but also to create a civic space at the corner of Prospect Hill and Bothar na mBan.

A double flight of semi-circular stone steps leading to the entrance is flanked by the council chamber's recession of angular stone walls - more like panels, really; they seem to be almost literally pointing the way to the entrance. Here, too, visitors are drawn in through a double-height portico, underneath the top floor of the building.

Sun screens are used on the south and west fronts, to reduce solar glare, and not as mere "gadgets", as Dr Wejchert says of their indiscriminate use by some architects these days. And as the building relies on the "stack effect" ventilation of its atrium, rather than air-conditioning, all of the windows can be opened.

The county council was persuaded to spend money on limestone to clad the main facades, as this is Galway's own truly indigenous building material. This led to the Ballinasloe quarry, which had been closed for 15 years, being reopened - just as the Cork white limestone quarry was reopened for A & D Wejchert's Student Union in UCC.

"Ballinasloe limestone is absolutely fantastic, so beautiful because it's not too uniform", the architect says. The stone is used in two textures - honed and bush-hammered - to give added richness to the facade. Its pale grey colour has also been used as the base to which other elements of the building, such as window frames, all relate.

The architect also believed that a certain logic should prevail in clearly identifying what parts of the building were private, requiring swipe-card access, and what parts of it were public. Offices people would have business with are arranged around the atrium. "It's all very natural - what you can see, there you can go", he says. The staircase, with its almost transparent semi-circular balconies, projects into the atrium, opposite the reconstructed stone facade. As a space, it has something of the grandeur of the great hall of a medieval castle. The fact that the building is only three storeys high meant that the offices did not need to be screened for fire safety.

This gives them a totally different ambience to the offices around the atrium in Dublin Corporation's headquarters at Wood Quay. Their natural airiness is markedly different to air-conditioned offices. "It creates a better environment for people to work in and I believe this also helps us to sleep better at night", says Dr Wejchert.

He had no difficulty convincing the county manager that the new County Hall should be setting an example for others in its environmental concerns. Care was taken to select sustainable materials throughout - all of the doors, desks and other joinery work is in maple, for example, while the stone facade speaks for itself.

There was "a certain penalty" to be paid for the expense of using stone; it meant that the interior had to be kept "very plain" - but that is also one of its strengths. White painted plaster is the predominant wall finish and this is used to great effect in the atrium's square concrete columns and the planted balcony they support at second floor level. The staff canteen takes advantage of superb views westwards over the city and its gushing river, just as Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown's County Hall looks out over the harbour. Car-parking is all to the rear, which is where it should be, and there is ample room for expansion in the future by extending the two "legs" of the new building.

The main feature of the council chamber is its full-height panel of textured pine boarding, with the council's crest at its centre; it is meant to symbolise the importance which its members say they attach to the natural environment of Co Galway. It is also meant to focus attention on the slightly raised dais where the chairman sits.

Seats for 30 councillors are arranged in a single horseshoe to underline their equality. The Tuam Herald, in what Andrzej Wejchert calls a "quite patronising article", focused on the fact that councillors did not seem to know which buttons to press at their first meeting in the new chamber; incredibly, it said nothing about the building.

Some 20 seats around the walls are available to the public on a ticket-only basis; perhaps this will encourage the council to hold no more of its meetings in private. But the lift which this building has already given to Galway is evident even in the smiles of the two receptionists seated at a large console desk in the middle of the atrium. They say it all.