View out to sea at night across the Causeway to Scotland
Court
Site
Sketch from the sea
View from above
Brick facades
Axonometric
Grand staircase
Sketch of roof structure
View from village
View out to sea at night across the Causeway to Scotland
Court
Site
Sketch from the sea
View from above
Brick facades
Axonometric
Grand staircase
Sketch of roof structure
View from village
In myth, Ireland was connected to Scotland via the Giant’s Causeway, and Northern Ireland sits between the two cultures framed by history and geography, related by language and religion and a common heritage, and distinguished by the common characteristics of a particular identity and nuanced views of the world. The visitor centre is part of this exchange of cultures. Situated overlooking this grand view you can expect to be moved to think about our place in time today; and for the architecture to open you to a larger scale of human experience inspired by the awesome feelings of wonder that simple basalt rocks evoke. This building must be memorable.
Our design offers a beautiful view over the sea to Scotland and across the bay to Donegal, making visible at once recent history and human geography, as well as ancient myths and geological time. The Causeway connects together these strands of culture, and we feel the scale of our significance in the face of the natural world, and the age of the cosmos dwarfs us. We propose that visitors should be able to respond to this awesome beauty as we always have: in telling stories and acting out the memories of our places and the events that affect us. The question is: 'How can a passive tourist experience become meaningfully public?'
Our response is to make an excavation and to build a mound, within and on top of which, you can experience the many scales of time. A large amphitheatre is proposed. The evening sun illuminates a stage at the foot of the amphitheatre, whose backdrop is an orchard of fruit trees. Visitors for festivals can appropriate these performance spaces. Locals can hire the inner auditorium for dances and parties, as well as for concerts and plays that can become part of a regular series of events, linked to both the educational facilities of the centre, and its internal auditorium and program. Whilst the upper amphitheatre, lit from behind audiences heads by the evening summer sun, acts as an invocation to visitors to commemorate and imagine the past and the future of this place in music and drama and song.
