MI/ARCH - Grafton Architects - 2013

GRAFTON ARCHITECTS BOCCONI UNIVERSITY 2013

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1 SHELLEY/YVONNE 2 DUBLIN/WORLD 3 NEW GEOGRAPHY/

INFRASTRUCTURE 4 TECTONIC/IDENTITY 5 REFERENCES/ RESEMBLANCES 6 DIALOGUE/TRADE

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2007 SOLSTICE ARTS CENTRE NAVAN, CO.MEATH, IRELAND - 2,200M2

2003 ARDSCOIL MHUIRE BALLINASLOE GALWAY, IRELAND - 4200M2

2007 OFFICES FOR THE DEPT OF FINANCE MERRION ROW, DUBLIN, IRELAND - 4,200M2

2003 NORTH KILDARE EDUCATE TOGETHER SCHOOL CO. KILDARE, IRELAND - 3500M2

GRAFTON ARCHITECTS

1977 2002 URBAN INSTITUTE OF IRELAND DUBLIN, IRELAND - 850M2

2006 MILFORD SCHOOL DONEGAL, IRELAND - 5400M2

1974 GRADUATED FROM UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

2006 EXTENSION TO SCHOOL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DUBLIN, IRELAND - 1050M2

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2013 NEW UNIVERSITY CAMPUS FOR UTEC LIMA LIMA, PERU

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2009

UNIVERSITÉ TOULOUSE 1 CAPITOLE TOULOUSE, FRANCE 18,000M2

UNIVERSITY CONNECTOR DUBLIN, IRELAND

2008 UNIVERSITA LUIGI BOCCONI MILAN, ITALY - 65,000M2

2012 MEDICAL SCHOOL, STUDENT HOUSING, PIAZZA AND PERGOLA UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK, IRELAND - 10,000M2

2008 WATER LANE MEWS DUBLIN, IRELAND - 320M2

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STONE PAVILION VERONA, ITALY

COMMON GROUND VENICE BIENNALE, ITALY

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Silver Lion for a promising practice of the International Exhibition Common Ground to Grafton Architects, from the right side, Shelley and Yvonne

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AWARDS 2012 12th International Venice Biennale;The Silver Lion - Architecture as New Geography Marmomacc Stone Fair 2012; Best Communicator - A Stone Pavilion Architectural Association of Ireland ; Award - University of Limerick Medical School, Student Residences, PIazza and Pergola 2010 Architectural Association of Ireland; Special Mention - Presidents House, University of Limerick 2009 The Civic Trust Awards; Award - Offices for the Dept of Finance, Merrion Row, Dublin, Ireland Architectural Association of Ireland; Downes Medal - Universita Luigi Bocconi, Special Award - Department of Finance, 7 to 9 Merrion Row, Dublin 2.

Mies van der Rohe Awards; Finalist - Universita Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy.

2008 OPUS Architecture and Construction Awards; Highly Commended - Drogheda Fire and Rescue Service - Department of Finance, 7- 9 Merrion Row, Dublin World Building of the Year Award ; Universita Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy Learning Category Award ; Universita Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland Awards;Award - Department of Finance 2007 Architectural Association of Ireland; Award - Solstice Arts Centre Navan, Co. Meath OPUS Architecture and Construction Awards; Award - Loreto Community School, Milford, Co. Donegal 2006 Architectural Association of Ireland; Award - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland Awards; Award Department of Mechanical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin 2005 Architectural Association of Ireland;Award - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin 2004 Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland Awards; Award - Ardscoil Mhuire Ballinasloe and North Kildare Educate Together School OPUS Architecture and Construction Awards Special Mention - North Kildare Educate Together School, Co. Kildare Special Mention - Colaiste Eoin + Colaiste Iosagain, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland Awards Award - Colaiste Eoin + Colaiste Iosagain, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin OPUS Architecture and Construction Awards Award - Ardscoil Mhuire Ballinasloe, Co. Galway 2003 Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland; Exhibited - Offices and Store, Dublin City University .

The Irish Joinery RIAI Awards; Best Public Building - Dunshaughlin Civic Offices + One Stop Shop, Co. Meath European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture; Mies van der Rhoe Award - Dunshaughlin Civic Offices, Co. Meath Architectural Association of Ireland Downes Medal - Ardscoil Mhuire Ballinasloe and North Kildare Educate Together School

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SHELLEY/YVONNE

After all the experience you have in educational facilities, it could be said that you have become experts on the topic.

Was this a typology you consciously decided to pursue? If so, why?

And, regarding your future, are you planning to redirect the focus of your work towards a different field?

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SHELLEY/YVONNE

Yvonne Farrel Many years ago, we decided that we would do schools of the department of education in Ireland. At that time, when not many architects were really persuing them because they were very low conscious and usually very tight time frame.But for us, the schools; primary schools, secondary schools and then universities , especially schools at the beginning, they were opportunities for us to deal with, if you like, a public building and there were something which apart that can be details the way of thinking that the schools are very practical public buildings in small towns, in places that little communities of scalars; they might be for 4 years old, or they might be 16 years old. But we know the education as a wonderful , if you like, function to make a schematic. So we were dealing with very modest materials; concrete block, sometimes using cutpart construction to make these very raw , if you like, in many monasteries or in some cases.

But the question is very interesting, I mean then, we moved from schools to universities, for instance, sometimes very modest universities. The project that we were building at the time when we won the Bocconi university was a small complex facility within university college Dublin. And we use a thoery of concrete block piers with cut-part construction,but also mentioned the decision to calve the roof light , if you like, on the obset direction to the plan, rather that mentioned that light does exist anyway. We were learning through education facilities and moving on from modest secondary schools to universities.

And you asked, what the conscious kind of typology that we pursue, it really back to the education for itself. We were attracted to the public and find generous nature of that.

And many of you asking for about the future that we are planning to focus toward a different field. And I suppose we still love universities, we still believe that it is amazing, for example, this room is full of you, the students, I mean, we created function to desire a kind of piazza of intellectual and critique of the future. They are very exciting for architect to build spaces for the students. And some only thing that we do, i mean, we do enjoy other things to get your opportunities that you would like to take them.

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And what is interesting in university, means you are here as a student, because the university is worthwhile. It is a place where interested in the architecture that make it worthwhile for someone like you to be anythings. So it is a pleasure and it’s a hard work as well, for some of each prototype to do when we were trying to do the structure included more teaching facilities than the workers which is a different things and different cultures, for instance, Bocconi building is world research and technical management So each university building has different characters, and we love them.

Shelley Mc Namara Could I just say one thing though, it is important to know, but certainly our experiences and passion of achitecture; we have never been annouced to say we now want to focus on this direction. We find such a life-brings certain opportunities and we take them, and because the situation in architecture which is quite stricting in my ways , we’re not complaining about it, But it is hard to get a university project to do if you haven’t done a university project. We think university buildings are also big to those people that have never done the universities.

You know, We, who have battle of life as bottle, but we would love to do also the housing. It’s not where university experts are behave things, i mean, when you get opportunities, you take them , or you make opportunities. But it’s also unfair.

It’s not fair on you that we get lots of universities from things that we have done before and also unfair that we can’t do something like the other things perhaps. So we were speaking earlier today about how architects conclusion.

So we were very reticent to challenge the way that architectural practices are formed by the way it was distributed.

So it is not like we are driving a car and we never go on another road. Lifes just not like that,You go, It also goes up and down, it’s not that we can’t do, It’s a difficult perfection.

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George’s street and Exchequer street intersection with the ornate George’s street arcade in the background. This leads towards Grafton street, the main shopping street on the city’s southside (Sketch by Roger O’Reilly)

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DUBLIN “There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin.”

- James Joyce, Dubliners

Relationship between the architect and the city is always complicated, either they ignore each other or both of them benefit from mutual respect.

Relationship between Grafton Architects and city of Dublin has been developed in a special way. Both of them - Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara - graduated from the School of Architecture in University College Dublin, later they stayed in at same University as teachers and founded their office also in Dublin.

Relationship between Grafton Architects and city of Dublin could also be understood from their name, as office isn’t called ‘Farrell + McNamara ‘ or anything recalling the founders, but the name is coming from one of the streets of Dublin where their office is based – Grafton Street.

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Dublin skyline from Guinness storehouse (Photo by: Aapo Haapanen)

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“Dublin is the city that continually teaches us and reteaches us” - Grafton Architects Universal language of architecture that is straightly linked to the local culture and traditions makes the frame of philosophical approach of Grafton Architects.

While describing Dublin they use references from the book of Elizabeth Bowen comparing streets of Dublin to the “unbroken cliff ” or “the city that seals up sunshine as unopened orange that seals up juice.”

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are founder members of Group ‘91 Architects who won won an International Competition for the Regeneration of one of the most important touristic and cultural area of Dublin - Temple Bar. GA is an author of projects such as University of Limerick, Waterloo Lane Mews, Urban Institute of Ireland, Solstice Arts Centre etc. these are one of the major landmarks of contemporary architecture of Ireland.

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Rooftop of Duomo in Milan

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MILAN – TOULOUSE “Loving and knowing one city means you learn how to see every city.

Dublin is the city that al¬ways teach us” - Grafton Architects Understanding the city and defining reference points, is the starting point of the structural framework of GA. Inspired by roof of Duomo in Milan, mentioning it as “manmade stone mountain pushed up in the air above the life of the city”, they developed concept for the winning competition entry for the Bocconi University. Strong integration of public space into the building through architectural volume and the local materials, created particular connection between interior and the urban pattern of the city.

Quoting Morales - “looking at the city without making any difference between a centimeter and a kilometer” and “investigation of the city as a detective” - GA speaks that one can focus on little things that can speak of something really important and inspire big decision.

School of Economics in Tolouse represent the collage of elements of traditional local architecture as medieval walls, courtyards, Albi cathedral etc. transformed into contemporary architectural language.

The use of local brick that is exactly the same as was in roman times gives the architecture feeling of timelessness, blurring the boundaries between urban and rural.

“We don’t see the difference between past and present in sense of places, spaces and qualities that move you. We were in that thing when human being enjoy moving in spaces where you feel like moving in play of forces of gravity.”

- Grafton Architects

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DUBLIN/WORLD

We found very fascinating your approach towards the city. Quoting from a lecture in Mendrisio University, you said: “Loving and knowing one city means you learn how to see every city. Dublin is the city that always teach us�.

What are the advantages from your Irish studies that you think have been useful and have made your way of thinking different from others?

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Shelley Mc Namara I think as that Moneo said that the common ground for us, as for architects, is the place where we work. Post-war Milan was a considered as a city of architects, and he asks the question in a very interesting way, if how such a small community of architects in Milan did this entire city so well.

Because they did it very Milanese, they knew their culture, their legacy, their city and their place in a deep way. And we know Ireland, Dublin in a same way, because we have spent 30 years making small projects, some of them not so small, and we get to know the tissue and the fabric and the culture of place.

Same relates to languages, if you listen to translators speaking about translations, they say that in order to translate from one language into another, you have to go deeper into your own language. So as Moneo said common ground is the city we carry within us, which is our own city, our own town, our own landscape.

Yvonne Farrel I think it’s a wonderful question, as humans we don’t have to forget about the human scale. We don’t have to do the thing that will make a person very tired, we have to design it for them. It’s about shared values. Yes, we have worked in Ireland, in a country much smaller than your country, but we share the same values. We are studying your history, and part of our training is coming to your cities. So we learn from one another.

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“As more and more of the natural world disappears, what we do as architect in making this new landscape of buildings has deep societal repercussions: this is why they use the term architecture - the new geography.”

Seeing images of cities destroyed, we realize how building hold culture and civilization. Buildings tell the story of human life in built form. With globalization architectures role to hold culture is even more critical. We walk through unfell spaces with our body, our senses, not just our eyes or with our mind.

Were fully involved in the experience, this is what makes us human. Buildings actually envelop people, doing so over time, each day throughout all the seasons.

Architecture is a shield and a protector of our humanity.

“What we build as Architects constructs the world we live in. It defines our world. It is the outer crust of the globe. Architecture is the expression and embodiment of Culture. What we build as Architects is, in fact, the New Geography.”

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Learning form the landstone-landscape of the Duomo of Milan and the secrets worlds of the Milaneses courtyard Grafton Architects managed to design two different worlds that not only coexist but allow the city to penetrate throughout the building. The final outcome is monolithic solid, a mass that emerge from the ground where one part the offices floats above the city, and the other the aula magna is craved below the ground, creating an unique building that enclose the surrounding.

Sky cuts permit the light to enter in, shaping the building and enlightening it of natural light.

By virtue of the sheer scale of many urban developments, architecture is at the scale of pieces of geography. And so, their aim is to create spaces where inhabitants can tell where they are, the time of day and the seasons.

“Infrastructures are flexible and anticipatory…they work with time and are open to change…by specifying what must be fixed and what is open to change they can be precise and indeterminate at the same time”.

Stan Allen

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Architecture as new geography, for Grafton, relates directly to urbanism. It is the idea that architects have the responsibility to build places and spaces which have a richness which can somehow compensate for the fact that so much of the natural world is disappearing, and more and more people are living in cities. It is also the idea that architecture grows out of physical and cultural ground.

A paradigm on their work is, for sure, the idea of the possibility of making buildings which might not be completely prescriptive or finished.

Or, as Walter Benjamin says, about “The capacity of certain structures to act as a scaffold for a complete series of events not anticipated by the architect.”

They achieved to create a curved landscape which floats out of the ground, but what reveal the scale and the rhythm of Bocconi is the infrastructural component.

Grafton’s interest in infrastructure does not initially come from dealing with the large scale but more from a characteristic that a project might have, and from the liberation that the ideas inherent in the term infrastructure could bring to design of a building at whatever scale.

And of course there is the capacity within thinking about ‘infrastructure’ of getting away from the isolated object as the only intention, the idea of connecting to the bigger context, supporting or contributing to the bigger context. It’s a vision where architecture act as something that can underpin and support human endeavor. By virtue of the sheer scale of many urban developments, architecture is at the scale of pieces of geography.

An architectural ‘infrastructure’ can ‘hold’ culture. It is not neutral. It might be big but it needs to also have spaces which engender intimacy, security, identity, conviviality, community.

It’s stunning how the Bocconi can be either so muscular, and yet at the same time, can become so localized, so much part of an everyday Milanese street corner. It’s a piece of architecture that revile its “vital presence”.

“The heroic scale and sureness of purpose of the architecture transfers itself to the occupants, so that they too feel bound together, part of some larger social order”.

Hugh Campbell

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As we heard today, and in other several occasions, it seems that you understand architecture as an abstract landscape, which we read as a paradigm in you design.

How do you express this idea in the final outcome of your project, and what characteristics do you think should be implemented to achieve a piece of geology in the urban context?

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Shelley Mc Namara I don’t think we are really talking about abstract landscape, we are talking about new geography. We were really saying that the earth is being changed by whatever buildings and projects you are doing. And we now have a role to play is that the scale of a new geography. In term of abstract landscape, it’s not so much abstract, it’s more real. Let’s say in the Lima projects, in Peru’, we are really saying in the ground level and the 5th level, we replaced with earth that we tried to make landscape in the level 5 or 6, we try to make another in the level 9. That it’s much more physical, in terms of the way we approach to work.

In terms of feel the geology of Milan, just thinking about the question, when we did the project, we’re speaking about carving into the ground, carving into the geology of your existing city, carving 9 meters into the earth of your city to make space enter, to bring light down, because space feels valuable. Not consider a likely of it, that you carve deep into to make space.

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“...the overhanging volume of the gallery,that represent, as we saw, a fundamental symbolic element of urban presence and junction with the city.� (Casabella 72.768, July 2009, pp 84-211)

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Thus we may claim that the built invariably comes into existence out of the constantly evolving interplay of three converging vectors, the topos, the typos, and the tectonic.

And while the tectonic does not necessarily favor any particular style, it does, in conjunction with site and type, serve to counter the present tendency for architecture to derive its legitimacy from some other discourse.

Kennet Frampton

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“...the cut and the partialization of the aula magna cantilever volume, caused by the closed glass wall below it , prevents the appreciation of his strong tectonic character.� (Casabella 72.768, July 2009, pp 84-211)

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Sketches for the Bocconi University (above), and for the Lima’s University Campus (below)

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How to do to make a new architecture? How Grafton Architects do to make their outstanding architectures, and how do they do to give them legitimacy?

Looking at the design process, starting from the sketches, going through the technical drowings and arriving at the bright real outcome, everything suggest a kind of decision to follow an emphatically realistic line, in all the Grafton’s projects. The very first step is always the definition of an image that soon will be translated in structural sketch.

In the Bocconi University’s building they assumed the Broletto market as generating idea that shaped their project, to let the city flows inside the university. Also in other projects, as in Lima’s University Campus starting from a cliff or a piece of Arena, under the concept of the University as an “arena for learning”.

Soon or later these ideas of archetypes are sketched as structural system which from this point will constitute a fundamental component to shape the project. In the Bocconi case, the bridge-structures, based on massive wall beams, permits masterfully to suspend both the offices part and the Aula Magna’s cantilever, giving freedom to the ground floor.

Once again in the Lima’s building the structure is an important presence, not hidden but expressed with pride: the concept of the arena, of the stadium is clearly visible.

Everything is shaped around the structure, terraces come out in a sort of waterfall of spaces.

Than their goal is defined as the most scrupulous fulfillment of the functional program, adding the care for the local materials, landscape, and the historical built environment.

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Due to their looking back to ancient models as starting point, we related the Frampton’s almost quixotic task about unite the cairn with what is now alive, in order “to create a still yet vital point within the whirlwind”.

Frempton, who was the head of the commission in the Bocconi competition, wish to reinvest a design with a now largely understated layer of meaning, perhaps more primitive or primordial in its sensory apprehension.

In his book “Studies of tectonic culture”, in fact, he’s not alluding just to the mere revelation of building technique but rather to its expressive potential.

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“...forming a labyrinth of courtyards, terraces, corridors and suspension bridges that, through channels cut in the roof, allow light to filter through to the levels below.� (Lotus International 127, 2006, pp 24-37)

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From this point, it's necessary to try to detect the possible references (historical and disciplinary) which guided Shelley and Yvonne in a very anti-academic and anti-doctrinaire way.

Grafton Architects always referred they works to the Modern Movement, taking it in a wide and kaleidoscopic range of expressive manifestations and using a very fine practice of reinterpretation. A practice that they never hide, but honestly declare, with an unusual sincerity in our nowadays panorama, which is often emulator but not so often admits from who an architectural idea comes.

Thanks to this, they have been in relation with the Modern Movement as protagonists of its evolution and upgrading, with strong determination and competence, leaving themselves free from architectural fashion trends or showy but temporary manifestations.

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“A space capable to stimulate the emotional sphere, with a reading poignancy that you cannot take for granted respect the past.”

(Detail 50.9, 2010, pp 908-924)

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Extremely useful for our understanding it’s the declaration made by Shelley Mc Namara, during the MI/ARCH interview, about their link with the Ticino movement , “La Tendenza”.

This fact put us in a new awareness also about regionalisms, about the lack of a modern architectural background in Ireland, and permits to make a step forward about their language.

Ticinese architects discovered the principle of transforming forms, even being closely related to the surroundings. Tradition and modernism encounter and complement each other, but this, however, is not achieved by a mere adoption of zeitgeist, but as a result of a new view on city and landscape which rejects, as Snozzi said in his Design Motivations, “restrictive protection and so called theories of mimicry and mimesis”.

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TECTONIC/IDENTITY

In addition to “Architecture as a new geography”, you have also stressed the concept of mass and of defying gravity in your designs. Some articles have pointed out that this can be related with the tectonic and atectonic movement, which Frampton has theorized in his book “Studies of tectonic cultures”.

How close is your work to these theories about tectonic?

Do you think that in the specific case of Bocconi’s contest, this supposed use of tectonic , has influenced the jury’s verdict?

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Shelley Mc Namara

It’s a very pointed question. Yes, we are influenced by his book.

On that jury also actually was only Ciriani and Man-giarotti.

I remember how Ciriani was challenging us because he used to work flexibly, he said flexibility is lousy, the Duomo is not flexible, Notre Dame is not flexible. He also challenged us saying that our presentation model looks like ice-cubes. That seems to be two architects on the hole, one being rational architect and the other being the ice-cube architect which was interesting. So it was a very interesting jury, as Yvonne said Mangiarotti told us that we should have courage, that we should be brave, and he was very encouraging.

Kennet Frempton who was the chair of this jury, didn’t express. I don’t know how the jury works...Obviously, I don’t think it was just because of Kennet Frempton and the way we were working.

But in terms of the “Study of tectonic cultures”... we are talking about areas which were very encouraging to us.

A book on regionalism in architecture was quite encouraging to us as architects, coming from a small country, that might be important, that hopefully can rise an architectural culture which comes out from our land, from Ireland. We don’t have history of modernism, because of our political history and there wasn’t a modern movement, or that was a very weak modern movement.

So how to do to establish a state of our own sense of identity? This culture concerning architecture has started to be really involved, forward in the last 20 years.

I think that book was the Ticino movement, on the work of Snozzi and Mario Botta. And that was also encouraging for us, that began somehow like Switzerland, we could make certainly their message our, for our culture.

So from that point of view it was a real encouragement that we were backward and we were so backward that we handed and we could do an architecture culture, a strong architecture culture.

And in this paste, the tectonics yes, but not only that.

It’s very interesting to have, suddenly, (let’s say) a fancy teacher in Mendrisio who says “Concepts doesn’t matter, it’s ideas that matter”. The concept of the idea it’s what, than the context. And that’s also very challenging. I think is a combination, that concept and idea are almost indipendent of place in a certain way. It’s quite an ethical tool, but its response is for us.

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It is spectacular to find references to different projects, ideas, materials and theories when analysing an architect. The capacity of pointing out something or someone who served as an inspiration for a certain project, means that this architect is able to see beyond his personal belief to distinguish valuable features amongst the beliefs of others. This proces of learning and reflecting shapes to a great extend the knowledge of a young architect.

Seeing that quality in a star-architect is already something impressive. Few are the professionals, who are presently shaping the face of contemporary architecture, and besides being on the top, dare to make statements about their own approaches using references, not only by their architectancestors, but also by their present colleagues-competitors.

This fascinating feature is one of the many values Grafton architects posseses. Their methodological and theoretical approach includes as much teaching as learning and that gives them a very strong individuality.

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Casa Malaparte II, Capri, A. Libera, 1930(above), Staircase Olivetti showroom, Carlo Scarpa, 1959(below)

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The poetic inspiration of the architects does not restrict itself from exploring new grounds. Thus, it is impossible to mention all references their architecture stems from, but it is vital to notice that not only pieces of built landscape has grasp Grafton's attention such as Villa Malaparte by Libera in Capri, the staircase of Carlo Scarpa at the Olivetti shop in Venice that find interpretation in the Stone Pavillion.

Pavilion for Pibamarmi, Verona, Italy, Grafton, 2012

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Burren Landscape, Ireland

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Diverse natural landscapes as the Burren Landscape in County Clare, Ireland, inspire the architects and refer to their theory of "New Geography"being translated into the exhibition design setting of the Stone pavillion, which becomes an expression of the bare rock as a pure primeval and unadulterated state of existence.

Pibamarmi pavilion, project render, Grafton

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Paul Rudolph, University; Yale Art and Architecture Building, New Haven, 1958-1962 (above), Salk Institute for Biological Studies, L. Kahn, 1962 (below)

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The Paul Rudolph Hall at the Yale School of Architecture building and the Salk Institute by Kahn that are recalled in the Medical School at the University of Limerick.

Medical School at the University of Limerick, Grafton, 2012

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Fragments of historical buildings, Toulouse, France

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"We have made a composition of the re-interpreted elements of Toulouse: the buttresses, the walls, the ramps, the cool mysterious interiors, the cloisters and the courtyards."

School of Economics, Toulouse, France, Grafton, 2009

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Paulo Mendes da Rocha Residence, 1960 (above), João Batista Vilanova Artigas: FAU São Paulo University, 1969(below)

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The emblematic figure that served as an inspiration for Grafton in their theory about Architecture as New Geography was undoubtedly the Brasilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. His capacity to exploit the advanced techniques of reinforced concrete and steel structures, gives him the freedom to promote the potential of architecture to transform existing conditions and to express his belief that architecture is a "sublime statement of human dignity"1.

Speaking of Mendes da Rocha, it is inevitable to mention his professional relation with one of the most influential architect and teachers in South America at the time- JoĂŁo Vilanova Artigas. Through out their 30-year cooperation as university professors, both architects influenced each-other's vision. That is how three brilliant architectural practices relate nonliterary to each-other. Da Rocha, Artigas and Grafton, build up a world of references in a span of time, which traced to thevery present day, makes a logical and consequential gradation of interchangeable ideas, their expression and accomplishment.

Lima’s University Campus, rendering

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Serra Dourada Stadium, Goiania, Brazil, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, 1973

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Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, Grafton, 2008

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Ospedale Maggiore, Milan, Italy Antonio Filarete, 1456

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The building is set back from the Viale Bligny & Via Roentgen edges to make a public space 18m x 90m inspired by the space forward of Hospital Maggiore.

University of Bocconi, Milan, Italy, Grafton, 2009

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Having introduced some main references to a number of Grafton's architectural pieces, it is interesting to also analyse some visual, dimensional and symbolical(in terms of light, monumentality and mysteriosity) resemblances between several, "exernal" from the ones they've discussed in their practice, projects and the case study in Milan - University of Bocconi.

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Rusakov Club Moscow(front view&section), Russia, Konstantin Melnikov, 1929

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University of Bocconi(front view&section), Milan, Italy, 2009

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Complex between corso Italia and via Rugabella(front view&section), Luigi Moretti, Milan, Italy, 1955

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University of Bocconi at Viale Bligny & Via Roentgen (front view&section), Milan, Italy, 2009

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Finlandia Opera House front facade, Helsinki, Alvar Aalto, 1971

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University of Bocconi inner court facade view, Milan, Grafton, 2009

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Soviet Social Housing Quartiere, Moscow, Russia

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University of Bocconi, Milan, Italy, 2009

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Buzludzha Hall-Monument of the Socialist Party, Balkan Mountain Range's Peak, Bulgaria, Georgi Stoilov, 1981

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University of Bocconi(view from the entrance), Milan, Italy, 2009

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Monument -Founders of the Bulgarian State, Plateau of Shumen, Bulgaria, Krum Damyanov & Ivan Slavov, 1981

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University of Bocconi(interior staircase), Milan, Italy, Grafton, 2009

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Regarding your passion about structure as an architectural element that has a presence, and some comparisons between the resemblance of Bocconi and Melnikov’s club Rusakov, we made a research and found out other Soviet pieces that have Bocconi’s language in terms of form, light and monumentality. Is it a matter of similarity between the Soviet constructivism and the surrounding Milanese rationalist architecture at the site, or is it just a visual connection?

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Shelley Mc Namara I think that’s a very good question, thank you, and it’s very interesting to what you’d researched, and from an interview point your research is a great honour to witness that you, as young architects, are asking these question. I think that what we’ve touched on this evening is that there are many things as you learn architecture and you train as an architect, as you are human being are linked, and if you’re like uhm... you see these images and they go deep into your unconscious, so they become a part of the prepatory of our architectural language. I think also there’s a rational..., it’s just interesting, in the development of the Aula Magna, which became the section. When we were doing the competition, the Aula Magna was in fact a flat road room in the South-West of the project and we had it there. We had to make the studies of the language and how to express itself in the city. For us it it wasn’t clear, it wasn’t communicating but drawing an awkward stroke... and looked at the requirement in the budget was for the Aula Magna for a thousand people that could be dividable in four hundred and six hundred people. So we then looked at what is the possibility of inputing it into section as opposite to plan...

Yvonne Farrell

“That was not the question...”

Yes, I know but am just getting there... In that section, what happened is that you had a situation where you have a section and in that section is the model section of an auditorium but for hundred people or six hundred people, so shape and form allowed us and russled us to make it occure. Yes, of course, there was something really important in the motivation which became something really important in terms of expressionism that could be legible.

So one is, yes- it is a part of our unconscios and then, it is not just a matter of similarity, it is also that the opposites attract the second part of the question about the Milanese Rationalism. We also admire Rationalism but what’s interesting is that to be Rationalist is wonderful, it is really the creative possibility in architecture, to take a thousand things repeated helps you in... And each office needed a these cloaks of privacy that was clearly how was born this mat glass and that came from a smaller project we made in Dublin many years before, which was looking out to a motorway pista so we revised these glass planes, which is rear glass...

So, yes- we’re all part of the architectural culture, but is not that all that we do is to make a collage... a building is not a collage of architectural elements.

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“Architecture expresses values, so it is political” Grafton Architects are very clear in the values they want to transmit with their architecture. In terms of space, they are concerned with the idea of connection, because, as they explain, "removing boundaries is not a physical thing but also a psychological need."

The Bocconi project's concept was based on the idea of exchange and interaction, of a continuous public space that conceives interior and exterior as one.

As one enters the building, one brings the city inside.

They refer to their conceptual sketches as the hieroglyphics of architecture. They are the base of the whole design, as it is visible in the Bocconi proposal, where the final outcome is practically a diagram brought to life.

Architects also have the task to guide. Grafton Architects decided to set back the building in order to allow the existence of a large public space. They further defined the idea of a ‘delayed entry’ where the user must pass through the 90-meter-long entrance before penetrating in what feels like a solid mass. In addition, this public space continues into the building, bringing along the floor of the city with its stone surface.

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Grafton Architects’ proposal for Bocconi won the competition because of its ability to “dialogue and interact”. It is a clear expression of their perspective towards Milan: a defensive and hard-to-penetrate exterior, and an open interior where courtyards can be found.

There is an engagement between the busy street life found in Viale Bligny and the interior spaces of Bocconi. In fact, the life of the city flows inside of the building.

It is incredible to see the amount of people that pass through, specially in the area that was inspired in the Italian Broletto Market. It feels as if the public street does not end with the encountering of the solid mass the Bocconi represents, so that fluxes rather continue and involve the building.

This is how the Bocconi building is conceived as a large market hall; a place of exchange that serves as a filter between the city and the university.

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A Window to Milan This idea of continuity and connection between city and building is found in every single part of the design.

The northern edge of the site fronts onto Viale Bligny, where the busy milanese life takes place. For the architects, this frontage became an architectural opportunity to open a Window to Milan, a physical real connection between city and the proposal. Being such an important corner, the Aula Magna was placed here.

The anteroom to the impressive Aula Magna, the foyer, is a double-height open space which is in direct connection both visually and physically with the other public open spaces found on the exterior of the building.

As it was conceived as a place for exchange, number of events happen on this open space. From exhibitions, to conferences, to graduations. Nevertheless, such events are not found throughout the whole year, but only on special occasions, leaving the space empty for most part of the year.

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The concept of exchange is not only left to the ground floor where the ‘Broletto Market’ is, but was rather extended so that it reaches the upper levels as well.

On the competition brief it was stated that the function of the building was the provision of offices to the different research departments offered in the Bocconi University. In order to promote more interaction on this internal part of the building, the architects distributed the different departments so that they must share passages and connections.

In the section one is able to visualize the complex organization proposed by the architects on which the different academic departments are mixed. All offices are distributed so that they all share a view towards the internal courtyards, improving the light and overall comfort situation.

Also, even though the external facade is considered as tough and closed, the connection between the building and the city is never lost. Once inside the building, openings allow the user to remember the milanese context where one is.

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Dialoguing with students “I love the building aesthetically speaking, I just hate having to find a professor’s office. It just feels like a labyrinth, it is so complicated, it’s impossible to find one’s way in the departments” - Marta “I enjoy passing through this building, I just prefer using it rather than using the normal street, it’s much more nice” -

Francesca “I think it’s a bit cold” - Lucia “Sometimes I come here just because I like seeing people going by” - Roberto “It’s beautiful! I wish I had classes here.” - Deniz “I don’t understand why I have to walk a mile just to reach the entrance. Why? What for? Why isn’t it just a normal entrance?” - Carlos “I just wish we could use it more often, it sucks that we only come here when we need to speak with a professor or when someone is finally graduating. It’s such a waste.” - Filippo “I’m from Milan, and I actually like it. I like the way it fits with the city, it doesn’t feel like an alien like most new buildings do.” - Chiara “I have lots of trouble finding professors’ offices. I have to around the whole building and I always end up lost in the wrong floor.” - Matteo “When a professor sets an appointment for us [students] to come, it sucks because there’s no waiting room or somewhere where to wait.” - Michael

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One of the most interesting aspects of your proposal for Bocconi is how the original concept is clearly - almost literally - expressed in the built project. This initial idea of dialogue and interaction is visible both in section and plan in a very diagrammatic way.

However, some students say they find the building too complex. For example, departments were mixed in the offices area for promoting exchange, but the distribution is so complicated that it is perceived as a labyrinth.

Or, the courtyard, which was inspired in the Broletto Market’s idea of interaction, is being employed as a passage.

If you had the opportunity, is there anything you would change?

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Shelley Mc Namara

I don’t agree with the second part... you know, that it is a passage and -- that, it feels like the city flows through the building. And, that is the case with the Broletto: the city flows through the building; it is a passage as well as being a market place. The first part, we would agree with you. I don’t feel that it’s too complex, I think that maybe it’s not a matter of complexity maybe it’s that it could have been clearer as opposed to less complex. Uhm, there have been times when we too get lost, so we realize that at certain moments that is something we missed. And I think that that is because one of the ideas that we had was that the grid would be regular in one direction and irregular in the other. We didn’t want this thing of being always able to see where you where and where you are going, but there are times were you don’t know where you are.

Is that a pleasure or is that painful? [laughs] I don’t know.

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BIOGRAPHY/MAGAZINES/WEBSITES

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ettore Vadini (a cura di), Sedici opere di architettura contemporanea: 4x4, Daniel Bonilla, Jurlj Kobe, Edoardo Milesi, Grafton Architects, Sala, 2011 Sarah A. Lappin, Full Irish: new architecture in Ireland, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2009 MAGAZINES Architectsjournal, 2013, Stirling shortlist: University of Limerick by Grafton Architects, John McLaughlin Architectural Review Issue, N. 1345, 2009, Ground and sky: Grafton Architects’ building for Milan’s Bocconi University synthesizes the tough yet sensuous character of the city, Catherine Slessor Casabella, N. 72.768 , 2008, Grafton Architects: tre opere, Bucci Federico, Montedoro Laura, Battisti Emilio.

Detail, N. 50.9 , 2010, Extension to Bocconi University in Milan, Pereira Emilio, Salvemini Severino, Bocciolini Massimo.

Domus, N. 846 , 2002, New architecture for Bocconi University: an invited international design competition to create a new teaching building, Ryan Raymund, Spinelli Luigi, Secchi Carlo Domus, N. 900 , 2007, Learning from Dublin (Università Bocconi Milan), Casciani Stefano Domus Editoriale, 2008, Un Cuore di Cristallo per Milano: la nuova Università Bocconi, Stefano Casciani Domus Editoriale, 2013, A visit to Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s studio, Juan Carlos Brillembourg Tamayo Lotus international, N. 127 , 2006, Earthly and heavenly: a dialogue between urban ground and sky in Grafton Architects’ extension of the Bocconi University in Milan, AA.VV. Lotus international, N. 138 , 2009, Grafton Architects: Università Bocconi, Milano, 2002-08, AA.VV. WEBSITES www.architetturadipietra.it www.dezeen.com www.graftonarchitects.ie INTERVIEWS An email conversation with Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects

by Tom Holbrook 19/04/2013 Floornature interview Yvonne Farrel and Shelley Mc Namara Royal Accademy Evening Lecture – Grafton Architects: Architecture as the New Geography 12/03/2012 Yale School of Architecture Public Lecture Series – Grafton Architects

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Filippo Altissimi Chiara Ceresoli Alessandra Giron Nikoloz Lekveishvili Elisa Medaglia Napasorn Opassuksatit Angelo Michele Pagano Greta Stefanova Shanshan Zhou

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