Design precedents for the Fitzgerald Chamber in detail
The Fitzgerald Chamber shares with its Oxbridge counterparts a material richness and strong sense of the dialectic tradition which it perpetuates. Rejecting the superficially historicist character which some contemporary debating chambers are adopting, the architects studied a variety of buildings which are equally warm, functional and sustainable but which also readily assumed their place in the context in which they are built. Unity Temple (1908), a Unitarian Universalist church in Chicago by American architect
Frank Lloyd Wright, pursued similar antiimitative ideals and became the most influential precedent for the Fitzgerald Chamber in UCD. Wright persuaded his clients to abandon the familiar little white New England steeple in favour of a Modern solution which celebrated the value of gathering. Unity Temple is at once introspective and communal, monumental and human.
No visual connection to the outside places human activity at the heart of the space, while the concealed windows and rooflights create a sense of levity which belies the volume’s modest proportions. In common with Unity Temple, the finishes are arranged geometrically and symmetrically. This serves to lend a sense of order and balance to what will, at times, become the tempestuous and frenetic venue for elite debating.
The basalt-clad exterior of the Fitzgerald Chamber reads as a heavy, solid volume, but this encases a light and intimate interior.
Right Main facade of Unity Temple. Far right Pulpit and balconies. Opposite View from the pulpit of Unity Temple. Photo: James Caulfield
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library of congress
Overleaf View from the pulpit of the Fitzgerald Chamber.