WorldbyStorm posted: " Caught sight of this on RTÉ, an article on Athy Library, took a look at the accompanying photo and thought 'that's some building' followed by the next thought, 'isn't that a Church?'. And indeed it was. ...the construction of St. Domin"
...the construction of St. Dominic's Catholic Church terminating Convent Lane – a building so remarkable that it has become an Athy landmark. The most striking feature of this church is its roof, which grandstands the remarkable plasticity and strength of concrete, sometimes called 'liquid stone', and which may well have seemed to some of the first parishioners that it was held in place by the hand of God. The freestanding parabolic roof meets the ground and sits on a wedge-shaped plan. Its apex reaches a level at 75.96m at one end and 69.15m at the other with a span of almost 48 m between the abutments. The walls were constructed after the completion of the roof as it was expected that the roof would move up and down with changes in temperature.
The Church opened in 1965 at a time when the idea it might undergo a conversion would have been unthinkable.
Coolock/Doghnamede similarly. There was a vogue for pyramids, and similar during those years for Catholic Church architecture and there's something fabulously futuristic about them, all soaring angles and curious geometries. This conversion in Athy makes perfect aesthetic sense given the purpose (even more so if one takes an agnostic view of these matters) of the building at the time.
But reconfiguring Churches as Libraries. What a brilliant idea, because conceptually it's not a huge step - not least that libraries are quiet places, generally, given over to focus and consideration. I really like the idea that these buildings might survive to be positioned, as the article notes, as civic spaces. This is a precedent that surely could be followed elsewhere.
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