23 Influence Abroad

As noted by Paul Larmour, Dublin Airport was the ‘most adventurous...elegant, graceful and majestic example of the International Style in Ireland’6. The Airport was paramount in how it simply brought Ireland nearer to Europe and nearer to the new world, both literally as it was a big development in transportation, but also symbolically. The airport gave Ireland a platform to present itself to the modern world; bringing a sense of pride to the nation that was also admired beyond Ireland’s borders too, as noted by Sean Rothery in Ireland and the New The design date, therefore, for the Dublin airport, a mature and elegant exercise in International Style, is early even by European standards, and it was certainly in advance of most work in the style done in Britain at the time. Modern Movement Architecture In Ireland. The construction of Dublin Airport was a milestone for Irish tourism. Guus Melai was the first Dutch designer to work for Aer Lingus. As a designer for KLM, he brought a different perspective to Irish tourism. As King observes “.. much tourism ephemera of the 1950’s and 1960’s was authored by the same pool of emigre designers who both reformulated existing strategies and provided new prototypes for how Irish national identity could be visualised both national and international consumption. The Dutch designers also were important in introducing the term ‘graphic

design’ to the Irish. As per Ireland, Design and Visual Culture: “in doing so their collective legacy extends beyond tourism advertising and also compromises significant contributions to the professionalization of Irish graphic design practise” Melai sought to redefine Ireland’s international image by using indigenous stereotypes and metaphors to promote the country and therefore help increase Irish tourism. One of Melai’s most well-known works is the poster below “Ireland invites you” which was produced in 1953. This poster was an example of the state wanting to portray a very specific image of the country. It was commissioned by Aer Lingus and Fogra Failte. This was a political act - for example Sean Lemass, a Fianna Fáil TD and future Taoiseach, made the case strongly that tourism would be key to Ireland’s economic development, which was a strong focus as Civil war led to economic turmoil. It was important that Ireland presented itself as a successful and thriving state as soon as possible following all the hardships it went through to gain independence in the first place while also showing a traditional image. The poster clearly references the rural west of Ireland ; a popular holiday destination amongst tourists for its beautiful landscape, quaint towns and distinct traditions. The poster displays a fisherman wearing a traditional Aran sweater and weaving a traditional crios belt. Melai’s focus on the man’s dress is important and worth noting: under the Penal Laws of the 17t h and 18t h centuries, numerous aspects of Irish culture and tradition such as religion, language and folk dress, including the crios belt, were prohibited Ireland, Design And Visual Culture. “only in the remotest parts of Ireland like the Aran Island. In the background is a stony beach and curragh with a clear blue sky.

Instead of focusing on the modern architecture and developments in technology that the Airport displayed, Melai chose to focus on the opposite. Melai was clearly more interested in essentialism rather than epochalism in his advertising. Melai has evoked the cultural and economic traditions of the west of Ireland to act as a representative for all of Ireland. Guus was a member of the ‘Dutch School’, artists and designers from the Netherlands, who came to live in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s because housing was cheaper and luckily for the Irish, a new fresh perspective on our visual identity was needed to be brought in. In January 1956, Aer Lingus’s publicity department forwarded one of the airline’s posters to the Arts Council. Entitled Dublin it comprised a highly stylised illustration of Ormond Quay. It was designed by Dutch designer Guus Melai. Although the British journal Modern Publicity had described the

‘Ireland Invites You’

point. A radical shift in political thinking from insularity to internationalism emerged and paved the way for economic development through greater engagement and trade relations with Europe. With respect to other design disciplines, specifically graphic design, textiles, ceramics, house-wares and industrial design, the most significant development occurred as a consequence of an invitation to a group of Northern European designers (including Kaj Franck and Åke Huldt) to survey Irish design in 1961. The observations of this group (published as Design in Ireland or The Scandinavian Report) were partly responsible for the establishment of the Kilkenny Design Workshops (KDW), the first government sponsored design agency in the world, and the singular, most important design initiative in the history of the state. KDW focused on the training, retailing, modernisation and promotion of Irish design, addition, to making sustainable links with extant Irish and European manufacturers and small-craftinitiatives. By the mid-1960’s textiles and graphics were the main source of design employment in Ireland and KDW had particular successes in these areas. In addition to nurturing the emergent field of industrial design, it also had great success in the export market for Irish craft, particularly in the US. Growth in design awareness, particularly as allied to export markets, eventually heralded huge developments in design education provision in the 1970’s. In Dublin the National College of Art and Design was completely reformed; Dún Laoghaire’s College of Art and Design championed Bauhausian principles of education; a network of Regional Technical Colleges appeared across the country; and new courses in graphics, industrial and fashion design emerged. In a similar trajectory to the 1950’s, the recession of the 1980’s unexpectedly stimulated creativity and ingenuity. The first design degrees materialised in 1981 and as a new generation of formally trained designers graduated, Dublin in particular experienced a significant rise in graduates establishing graphic and industrial design consultancies. Due to an increased emphasis on tax breaks for foreign investment, international animation studios also established headquarters in the city. A new wave of emigration added to the network of the Irish design diaspora. As Irish graduates secured internships in the design centres of New York, Milan, Paris, Berlin and London, they opened up opportunities for subsequent graduates, keen to train with the world’s best design talents. Back in Dublin, astute entrepreneurialism saw the industrialist Tony Ryan establish the lowcost airline Ryanair, revolutionising airline travel across Europe and placing Dublin at the

An emphasis on the economic benefits of tourism had a crucial impact on the trajectory of design practice. This awareness can be traced back to the 1940’s with the realisation that the tourism industry could supplant agriculture as the principal indigenous industry. As mass emigration and high unemployment figures defined the 1950’s, there was a distinct growth in design activity, allied to tourism development. This was most evident in the area of graphic design where Dutch designers from KLM were imported to work on an ambitious advertising campaign for Aer Lingus. As the decade progressed, these designers worked for many tourism-related companies including Bord Fáilte and John Hinde, in addition to working for a host of indigenous companies, including Guinness and RTÉ. They were also active in promoting the advertising industry which continued to expand with the establishment of the institute of Creative

Advertising in 1958 (now ICAD). As a flag carrier, and thus, official agent of state, Aer Lingus became hugely significant in how Ireland and Irish design were viewed internationally. It became a locus for the promotion of quality Irish goods as exemplified by the design of crew uniforms, the examples of Irish ceramics, glass and textiles used in its service provision, and its promotion of Irish design in the pages of its in-flight magazine, Cara. With limited industrial production, direct or indirect state intervention into the stimulation of design activity remained necessary during this period. A number of government reports were published emphasising how greater links between art, industry and tourism were crucial for the country’s economic survival and the recommendations of these, including that of educational reform, slowly trickled down into policy. By the late 1950’s, Ireland had reached a turning

centre of a growing aviation network. The physical fabric of the city also began a radical transformation. By the end of the 1980’s, an ambitious project of urban renewal was formulated; twenty years on this Docklands Development Plan has transformed the city’s landscape through a mix of office, residential and cultural buildings. In the next room you will enter all that is the west of Ireland and the epic and extraordinary Ardnacrusha power plant located in County Clare. This major infrastructural development was completed in 1929, seven years after Irish independence. For the first time it brought electricity to 40,000 Irish homes, “setting the foundation for rural electrification and paving the way towards a brighter future’11. The plant was revolutionary even by international standards as “one of the largest civil and electrical engineering projects of its kind,’’12 especially for the size of the country was Ireland. It seemed to fulfil Pearse’s vision for Ireland mentioned above: Indeed, the construction between 1926 and 1929 of a large power station on the river Shannon under the direction and control of the Electricity Supply Board, was one of the very few undertakings to represent a fulfillment of earlier seperatist ambition. The plant was not merely aesthetically striking, but also reflected a new hope for the newly independent Ireland. In other words it is a perfect example of epochalism; the Ardnacrusha was the spirit of the age envisioned by the State. As noted by the book Art and Architecture In its early years, the challenge for the independent state was to steer a course between inherited tradition and optimistic modernization Emblematic of this nascent identity was the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme deploying modern materials forms and technologies to supply a critical piece of new infrastructure. It was fitting that the modernist movement emerged while Ireland was forming its new identity. The young state’s commitment to technological progress and modernisation led to a need of skills and expertise from European neighbours. Just as Dutch designers were welcomed to help with design and tourism, German engineers helped to work on the construction of Ardnacrusha. There were more than one hundred German workers and engineers on site many of whom brought along their families during their stay. As summed up in Ireland Design and Visual Culture; The distinctions between ‘the nation’ and the ‘state’ are particularly complex and the boundaries between these distinctions are often blurred. This is particularly apparent in, for example, considering the Shannon hydroelectric scheme, which simultaneously met the State’s need for modernisation through its employment of German industrial designers and yet was

Michael Scott