The transformation of the once-notorious industrial school in Letterfrack, Co Galway, into a thriving community-based furniture college is to to be Ireland's entry at the Venice Biennale this autumn.
The project by multiple award-winning architects O'Donnell and Tuomey, shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Architecture last year, was selected because it fits the theme of this year's architecture biennale, "Metamorphoses".
Funding of €25,000 is being provided by the Cultural Relations Committee of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, with a further €25,000 coming from the Arts Council. But the major sponsor is a Dublin-based property developer, Mr Terry Devey.
"I think it's very important for the country that we are represented well in Venice," Mr Devey said yesterday.
"Letterfrack is such an amazing story, which I've always been struck by, so that's why I got involved in this".
Additional support for the Irish exhibit in Venice is being provided by Connemara West, the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and Nuova Icona, a non-profit cultural association that promotes contemporary arts in Venice.
Announcing Ireland's entry the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr O'Donoghue, said the Venice Biennale provided a unique opportunity to reach an international audience.
The 2004 Biennale, which opens on September 12th, is expected to attract more than 100,000 visitors during its eight-week run. For the first time Ireland's entry will be located in the Arsenale, which will be the main venue for the biennale.
The architect and critic, Mr Shane O'Toole, who is Irish commissioner for the biennale, said O'Donnell and Tuomey's rehabilitation of the former industrial school in Letterfrack was "a true project of redemption that fits perfectly with the theme of this year's biennale".
He was "greatly heartened" that the writer, actor and artist, Gerard Mannix Flynn, who has written about his years as an inhabitant of Letterfrack, had accepted an invitation to open the Irish pavilion in Venice.
Ireland was represented at the 2002 biennale by Bucholz McEvoy Architects, architects of Limerick County Hall.