New RIAI president plans to get people talking

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Archiseek / Ireland / News / 2008 / January 10

Sean O'Laoire

Forty years ago, Sean O'Laoire was one of the leaders - along with the likes of Ruairi Quinn and Duncan Stewart - of the first student revolt in Ireland when architecture students occupied their school at UCD in Earlsfort Terrace, and ultimately got rid of its head, the late Desmond FitzGerald. As O'Laoire recalls, there were real fears that the school would lose its recognition by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) - something that was very valuable at a time when so many had to go abroad to work. But it was the wider issues of architecture and society that interested him. As the new president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), O'Laoire has said that one of his priorities would be to "galvanise" all of the architecture schools on the island - the two in Dublin (UCD and DIT), one in Belfast and the newer schools in Cork, Limerick and Waterford. He wants them to become "vehicles for public debate" involving practitioners, academics and students and interested members of the public to look at "new concepts, projects, new ways of thinking" in a way that would engage with communities and be "meaningful for consumers of architecture, which we all are".

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