From Taliesin to Ballynanty

Terri Sweeney

Scoil Mhainch�n Naofa Cail�n� agus Na�on�in/St. Munchin�s Girls� School, Ballynanty, Limerick City, was designed by Andrew Devane (1917-2000), and opened on September 4th 1957. Presently there are 220 pupils enrolled in the school, which has a staff of 15 teachers.

Andrew Devane was born in Limerick in 1917. Having studied architecture in UCD, he joined Robinson and Keefe Architects, Dublin. In March 1946 he left for the Taliesin Fellowship, a community of apprentice architects founded by Frank Lloyd Wright, which moved between Arizona and Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Although back in Ireland by 1948, he described his time in Taliesin as having had a profound effect on his work: �Nature, material and space, fused and distilled, with indescribable variety and discipline, by the sure hand of a master. For once, here, for me, there was, between the ideal and the reality, no shadow, no doubt.� He continued, �I owe Frank Lloyd Wright, and all in Taliesin at that time, a great deal, (�) he was a titan, a genius, a very great architect. (Devane: pp 17-18)

By the time Scoil Mhainch�n Naofa Cail�n� agus Na�on�in/St. Munchin�s Girls� School, Ballynanty, was designed, Andrew Devane was in partnership with Robinson and Keefe.
Sketch design drawings date from early 1954, and the foundation stone was laid, and blessed, in 1955. The school website lists the building contractor as �the Murphy Brothers from Cork�. The final plans detailed fourteen-classrooms, a cookery room, two single staff offices, a staffroom, a bookstore and an auditorium with scenery-dock and two dressing rooms. Formal external features included an �infants� play-space�, �senior and junior play-space� on a lower level, a �gym-terrace� adjacent to the auditorium, raised planters and clusters of trees with particular species indicated on the plans.
In a letter from Taliesen the architect claimed to have attained �an innate sense of the integrity of materials, firstly in their own structure and growth, and then in the knowledge of their harmony and limits of construction�. This appreciation of materials was seminal to Devane�s work.

The Usonian concept for domestic architecture, developed by F.L. Wright from the 1920s, appears to have provided a framework for the design of the Ballynanty School:
Separated planes (Entrance Block, Stair Hall, Classroom-block, Infants� Play Shelter)
Cantilevered roofs (light punctured Entrance Canopy and Auditorium Canopy at the Stage / South West Entrance)
Clerestorey day-lighting (between Classrooms and corridor, between Entrance Hall and Senior and Junior WC area, to the North facing wall of the Auditorium, along the South West elevation of the Senior and Junior WC and Cloakroom wing)
90� plan laid out on a grid
The importance of the masonry core, with masonry piers terminating the wings (Stair/Entrance Hall, Staff Offices, Cookery Room, Infants� Cloakrooms)
Active space extending the plan in one direction (i.e. the two-storey Classroom Wing)
Quiet space at a right angle to the Classroom wing (Washrooms, Cloakroom accessed by a linear route terminating in the Auditorium block)
One side glazed (continuous framed glazing above counter height to each Classroom)
Custom designed furniture (Stove enamelled metal and beech stools, benches and assorted built-in storage units for the Cookery room)

Also remarkable in Ballynanty School is the cast profiled blockwork arranged in a handed and alternating pattern, and internal glazing at door head level to provide borrowed light from the corridors to the classrooms, featuring opening hopper hung sections to aid cross ventilation. The architect developed a modular panel to the Classroom wing external leaf, which was framed by a smooth exposed concrete frame, infilled with profiled blocks and a glazed screen. Where freestanding columns are stretched in one direction, as in the loggia-like rain shelters, the cores are carved out to reveal a sculptural flowing profile.

Interventions since construction include the part replacement of the windows, some of which do not follow the original mullion pattern, (perspex has been used instead of glass in some instances) and a new ceiling has been installed in the auditorium that does not follow the profile of the original. Clerestorey windows to the Auditorium have been blocked. A security fence was erected, which exceeds the height of the original and the paint-scheme has been altered. Recently the floor covering was replaced throughout, and the roof upgraded.

If, as Dr Jukka Jukilehto stated at a recent lecture in UCD, �prolonging the life of an object becomes a creative art� what is the future for Ballynanty School, which captures a particular moment in Irish architecture?
Its significance is suggested by the architect�s interpretation of Wrightian principles, an experimental use of cast-profiled blocks and precast concrete, furniture design, and an overall integrity of form.
Ballynanty School should therefore be listed for preservation as a protected structure.

Notes in relation to the Drawings:
Various Sketch Design Schemes:
Drawing no. 87/6 is closest to the final design, auditorium roof
Profile as shown is not as built. It was subsequently reduced in height with its profile dramatically remodelled. The auditorium block was realigned on plan, the projection room and upper level of its Entrance Hall were omitted.
Site Plan indicates a cluster of trees and radial pathways in the open space adjacent to the School Site. The area is presently covered in grass only. A pathway is worn in the ground along the line of the boundary fence, with no particular provisions for pedestrians. It would be good to investigate ways of enhancing the park and the school�s relationships to the surrounding housing and shops, and reassess how people inhabit them.
Cookery Room Stool Assembly Drawing No. 62/1/11, Plan and Elevation. Cookery Room has been reassigned as a Staff Room. The stools are still in use.

Terri Sweeney is an architect with the Office of Public Works, currently studying for an MUBC at the School of Architecture, UCD.

Sincere thanks to Mr. Roderick P. McCaffrey and to Mr. Shane O�Toole for his advice on sources for this article. Also thanks to Ms. Chris Lynch, Archivist with Robinson Keefe Devane Architects and Berni Sweeney.
All drawings copyright Robinson Keefe Devane Architects.