Award Winning Architect Provides a “Sneaky Peek” of the Future
Over 300 people took time out of their working day to attend our Sneaky Peek Presentation of the New Lyric Theatre on Friday 23rd October. The event was part of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queens and provided the general public with an exciting opportunity to hear from the man behind the design.
Lead architect John Tuomey from award-winning, Dublin-based architects O’Donnell Tuomey (www.odonnell-tuomey.ie) took the attentive audience on a tour through Northern Ireland’s most exciting arts capital project including virtual images, plans and a “back of a fag box” sketch he drew back in the summer of 2003.
Tying in the concepts of planning a mission to the moon with the representation of the flowing river through the fixed structure of city housing, John engaged the audience for 40 minutes with a fascinating insight into the creative process behind his design. During the event he explained how he built his design around the three fundamental creative elements of the building; the main 390 seat auditorium, the smaller studio space and the rehearsal room.
At the end of the presentation people were given the opportunity to quiz John about his designs. With questions ranging from the use of masonry to maximising the footprint of the site on Ridgeway Street, John built the excitement and helped bring the building to life long before its scheduled reopening in Spring 2011.
The free event was hosted by the Chairman of the Lyric Theatre, Mark Carruthers and was attended by over 70 students of architecture from Queen’s University who had come along to get a first hand account from this highly revered architect.
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