Irish architecture exhibition to open in Brno

Irish architecture will be exhibited for the first time in Central Europe when the 2009 AAI Awards will be on show at the Architecture Centre in Brno from 28 April until 4 June 2010. The Brno exhibition and associated lecture series were arranged for the Architectural Association of Ireland by architectural writer Shane O’Toole, with the support of Culture Ireland. The lecture series will take place at the Faculty of Architecture, Brno University of Technology.

Shane O’Toole will open the exhibition in Brno on 28 April with a lecture on ‘Designing for Democracy: Ireland’s Civic Architecture, 1994-2009′, celebrating the best of the new civic offices built throughout the country in recent years. Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey of O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects, whose Sean O’Casey Community Centre in Dublin’s East Wall received a special award from the AAI, will speak about “˜Recent Work’ on 11 May. Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, the AAI Downes Medal winners for Bocconi University in Milan (the 2008 World Building of the Year), will present their lecture, “˜Anchor and Animation’ on 3 June, the day before the exhibition closes in Brno.

2010 marks the 25th anniversary of the AAI Awards, which are judged by a panel of five Irish and international assessors and published annually by the Architectural Association of Ireland and Gandon Editions as “˜New Irish Architecture’