A fire inserted into a monumental Modernist building that was never meant to contain one, but somehow still belongs.
1/ From my residency in Maastricht I watch the historic Bank Buildings in central Belfast blaze. There is a perverted beauty in the images, the scale of the building somehow changed once its red sandstone facade becomes entirely charred, blackened. In an uncomfortable architectural voyeurism, I am speculating on images of great loss but unable to truly experience it.
2/ During the summer I visit Mussenden Temple on the North coast of Ireland, a building I am cyclically drawn to. Modelled on the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli and constructed in 1785, it once required a fire to be constantly stoked in the basement. This acted as a protective incantation to the books stored within, which would otherwise corrode from the damp climatic conditions.
3/ A new redevelopment breaks ground at Belfast’s Sirocco Works, now branded Belfast Waterside, the focal point of which is a tall brick chimney- one of the many remnants of the city’s industrial heritage, and a listed monument. The long vistas made available of this building’s slender profile are soon to be lost to bland office redevelopment.
Aerated-concrete block, concrete, fire
brick, stainless-steel stove accessories;
4.89 x 4.32 x 6.65m
Photography: © Werner Mantz lab
