In the discussion after the Annual Architecture Lecture last week, Grafton Architects claimed not to have been motivated in their choice of international architects by any consistent notions of style.   But, as one walks down the great spaces of the Corderie, it seems obvious that they are interested in low volume, social projects, which make good use of natural materials and create unrhetorical public spaces.

Níall McLaughlin opens, an Irish architect with an interest in Yeats:-

Opposite is a school building near Pune by Case Design:-

Z33, a House for Contemporary Art, designed by Francesca Torza is purely in this spirit: low-key, extremely sensual, built out of handmade bricks, an aesthetic retreat:-

I admired the work of De Blacam and Meagher, more Irish architects, who have reconstructed the central space of their Cork Institute of Technology as if it was drawn by Bellini.

What comes across most of all is a sense of materiality – the enjoyment of brick and stone in built form:-