img(height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=2939831959404383&ev=PageView&noscript=1")

Time and place

Words:
Eleanor Young
The Grand Gallery at the National Gallery of Ireland, refurbished by Heneghan Peng.
The Grand Gallery at the National Gallery of Ireland, refurbished by Heneghan Peng. Credit: Marie Louise Halpenny

The passage of time has never been a place, but it should be; one of those long airy passages where cloister rather than corridor springs to mind, though in truth it is neither.

Light flooding in from one side, a columnar rhythm emphasising perspective and time; aged stones dimly in the distance, Victorian tiles, sixties beams extending into focus and then a patchwork of scrape and reveal before the sharpness of white and more white. Refurbishment cannot solely reference original intentions, but nor should it disappear history. Working with the layers of time has been shown to make the richest of reworkings. You know that.


 

Latest articles