Dr Mhairi McVicar

Reader

Welsh School of Architecture

Cardiff University

30 June 2020, Dublin

Before receiving your kind invitation to speak at the Generosity and Architecture conference in Cardiff University 22 June 2018, I was thinking about generosity for a long time in my practice as a curator of architecture and spatial practice, and more profoundly when I worked as an assistant to the curators of FREESPACE Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell for the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

Generosity was the recurring stitch that Farrell and McNamara wove through their manifesto and referred to it many times as a central motivation for creating the curious term FREESPACE. The word FREESPACE was new to the architectural lexicon, but its meaning was not. It was simply an application of a new frame of reference that allowed architecture to be understood afresh.

The purpose of architecture, to improve human life both intellectually and physically, may have been forgotten and ignored over the years. Similarly, with many aspects of civilisation today, we have allowed populism and homogeneity dominate us. Generosity, empathy, meaning and connection in architecture is what FREESPACE wanted to revive. FREESPACE was gifted to us by Farrell and McNamara, who used a high-level platform to raise a global conversation about interrupting a pattern of behaviour. It forced us to stop and think and re-evaluate, demand more from architecture, as it should do, and it also encouraged us to enjoy, to be inspired and to dream.

Mhairi, both your invitation and FREESPACE have forced me to look through the lens of Generosity on all I’ve done and experienced.

My background is in visual art and philosophy. In 1995 I got my first job managing an art and architecture project for the National Sculpture Factory and the Architectural Association of Ireland. In 1998 I became director of a public contemporary art gallery outside Dublin called The Butler Gallery. Many of the artists I programmed were site specific in nature, creating temporal works as a catalyst to reveal and question ideas around space, body, politics and society. I unintentionally developed a penchant towards art that experimented within the intersection between society and space. This intersection grew into a realm of possibilities for me that felt so enriching and so generous.

I moved to London in 2003 where I was Deputy Director of the Architecture Foundation (AF). The AF appropriated a disused restaurant on Old Street as an experimental ground to communicate and exhibit architecture beyond convention. I moved back home in 2007 to direct and curate a brand-new organisation called the Irish Architecture Foundation.

As Director of IAF I do not affiliate myself with any particular constitution, creed or movement. In that sense I am agnostic and therefore free, open and inclusive to allow for multiple experiences and beliefs to take us on a journey and go beyond the accepted conventions. This view challenges people inside and outside the architecture profession to think about and practice architecture in new ways and to understand its importance in their daily lives as well as its ability to achieve the extraordinary. This need to open up the conversation, to show all the layers of humanity, good, bad and the disagreeable, is an act of generosity.

Mhairi, generosity becomes more complex and provocative the more we scratch the surface doesn’t it? What keeps resurfacing for me is the term Reciprocity. I want to say that generosity is inert without reciprocity. I will say it. Reciprocity is the gift that keeps giving, because it makes it possible to build continuing relationships and exchanges. There is a duty of trust and a moral obligation to do well by each other.

I like to think that IAF is an example of learning from direct experience and can speak directly to contemporary concerns from political, social, cultural to environmental issues, where learning and sharing are the touchstones. This type of practice is premised on the principles of hospitality, openness and generosity and on the idea of the gift – something is offered, and something is given. If you are offering something, there must be a willing beneficiary. Yes, generosity is inert without reciprocity. Exchange, cooperation and communication are essential to ensure the best possible outcome. In this exchange there is no hierarchy of knowledge or skills, we are all equal.

A current IAF project I want to share with you, that demonstrates reciprocity, is the Ballyfermot BMX and Skate Park. Ballyfermot is a district of Dublin 7km from the city centre. Unemployment figures there are twice the national average, it is known for high levels of crime, from antisocial behaviour to organised gang crime. Despite this, it has an incredible community infrastructure, who are equipped with a community action plan, to improve their public realm area socially, culturally and economically. Ballyfermot Youth Services and the BMX Club wanted to create a BMX State and Play Park and their vision was that it would attract people from all over Ireland to Ballyfermot.

The site in Le Fanu Park known locally as ‘The Lawns’ was proposed by Dublin City Council to the Ballyfermot Youth Services who had been lobbying for a facility like this in the area since 2011. The project stalled soon after and we asked them if we could help get it back on track, to realise their vision, and to give them more by architecture and design playing a central role in the process. We got a philanthropist (remain anonymous) on board and met with Dublin City Council who all generously provided the funding. With the community’s help we delivered an international design competition, won by London based interdisciplinary architecture practice Relational Urbanism.

Relational Urbanism inspired the judges (the jury was comprised of youth leaders, BMX bike expert, the philanthropist, the local authority, a play expert and an architect) with their exciting and well-considered design, which managed to balance sensitivity to the site and local context with world-class ambition for the new civic space. Reciprocally recognizing and utilising the skills the architect had to offer, and combining this expertise with the local, generational, historical and political wisdom of the community was invaluable. We created a two way mutually beneficial relationship of equal status, all participants employing the quality of generosity. This park is now open.

Mhairi, I remember in Cardiff, I expounded on other categories, not just Reciprocity, in my attempt to define generosity. I spoke about Intentional Generosity as a device that is designed and engineered from the outset. The designer makes it apparent in their intentions and approach to the scheme that generosity plays a central role, similar to FREESPACE. Unintentional Generosity happens in a building that allows people freedom to appropriate spaces and give them new uses over time often different from the intended proposed use by the designer.

As I write to you from Dublin, I am still working on refining these categories of generosity, they are problematic and as of yet I have no conclusions. I can’t help thinking that the ultimate generosity, is one that is neither given nor taken but absorbed by osmosis. I read that Jacques Derrida believed a gift can only exist so long as it remains unrecognised by both giver and receiver. It just happens. This category is neither reciprocity, intentional or unintentional. Maybe this is super-generosity, or true generosity.

I still have a lot to figure out Mhairi, thank you for helping along the way,

Best wishes,

Nathalie