Culture Ireland

Exploring the relationship between architecture, infrastructure and technology.

Infra Éireann (Ireland’s entry at the Venice Architectural Biennale) explored the relationship between architecture, infrastructure and technology in building a new nation. Constructed as an open matrix of drawings, photographs, models and other artefacts, the exhibition presents ten infrastructural episodes – Negation, Electricity, Health, Transportation, Television, Aviation, Education, Telecommunications, Motorways, Data – spanning a period of one hundred years from 1916-2016.

The graphic design and architectural teams explored modularity, particularly the square module, simultaneously. This was reflected in the identity and print ephemera design for the exhibition.

Infra Éireann modular exhibition framework with square modules. An outline map is in the centre.
Billboard advertising the Infra Éireann exhibition.
Infra Éireann Making Ireland modern black tote bag.
Three overlapping covers of
Infra Éireann poster featuring an old photo of Busárás Dublin with a duotone treatment. The poster is set on a monolith in a European street scape.

Joint Commissioners Curators /Designers
Gary A. Boyd and John McLaughlin

Team
Engineers; Casey O’Rourke Associates, Construction; Oikos Ltd, Models: Modelworks, Production Team,Tara Kennedy with, Irene Brophy, Aoibheánn Ní Mhearain, Tomás Prendeville, Cathal Curtin and Naomi Sheehan

Photography
Alice Clancy & Ros Kavanagh

A free Ireland would drain the bogs, would harness the rivers, would plant the wastes, would nationalise the railways and the waterways, would improve agriculture,
would protect fisheries, would foster industries, would promote commerce, would diminish extravagant expenditure.

Padraig Pearse
From a Hermitage, 1913

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