Rush Library, Rush, Ireland. Architect: McCullough Mulvin Architects, 2009. View of nave from entrance showing walnut clad inter


St Maur’s Church dominates the village green on the Western edge of Rush: Fingal County Council commissioned McCullough Mulvin Architects to transform it into the town library. The work combined investigation and conservation of the existing structure with a particular concern for the rescue of ordinary materials, making a distinctive intervention into it ,an undulating walnut plane which fills the nave, the shape barely contained, pushing tensely against the older shell. On plan, it is like a clump of seaweed, reference to its marine location; in section, it forms an inverted U, the space between, formed like a city street, deforms the route from entrance to ‘altar’, forcing it to meander, glimpses of a coloured termination lost and found again. Externally, the churchyard became a garden, strips of concrete inset with names of the town and library interspersed with channels planted with grasses and vegetables, the spirit of the graveyard- and the towns agricultural basis- extended for


Size: 3776px × 4442px
Location:
Photo credit: © Ros Kavanagh-VIEW / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 2009, 21st, architect, architects, architecture, ceiling, centre, century, church, clad, cladding, conversion, council, county, day, desk, dublin, europe, fingal, general, glass, government, image, interior, ireland, library, maur, mccullough, media, mulvin, nave, public, reception, roof, rush, series, st, stained, timber, town, view, walnut, windows, wood