Vessel | O'Donnell + Tuomey

The word vessel is suggestive of embodiment enshrinement and containment. It carries associations with craft and circulation. Airship boat blood vessel utensil. Vessel is a site-specific response to the theme of Common Ground a plank-stacked structure in conversation with the layered brick construction of the Corderie. Vessel is a contemplative space hollowed out of solid matter a light funnel a lantern chamber and a passage leading towards our common ground. Literary and artistic affinities constitute our common ground. Architecture’s deeper resonance is related to its wider culture. The work of other architects artists poets and performers sustains us. They provide inspiration for us to make our own work. Such affinities are part of our cultural context. We have invoked precedent and invited practitioners to contribute to our installation. We have remembered inspirational works and reflected on projects that run parallel to our own pursuits. Bricks are cast from a mould each special brick has to be hand-thrown from its own wooden casing. Clods of clay are dug out from the forest floor and the wood for the mould is cut from the trees. Brick and timber the raw materials of archaic construction have not changed much since the ship-builders built their vessels between the brick columns of the Corderie. As in the Arsenal of the Venetians Boils in winter the tenacious pitch
 To smear their unsound vessels o’er again For sail they cannot; and instead thereof
 One makes his vessel new and one recaulks
 The ribs of that which many a voyage has made; One hammers at the prow one at the stern This one makes oars and that one cordage twists
 Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen… from Dante’s Inferno Canto XXI Contributors to Common Ground Seamus Heaney Tim Robinson Liam Flynn Joseph Walsh Studio Williams and Tsien Peter Salter Janet Mullarney Marie Foley Team Sheila O’Donnell John Tuomey Laura Harty Brian Barber Jonathan Janssens Donn Holohan Structural Engineers: Horganlynch With the additional support of: Culture Ireland Coillte Coford – National Council for Forest Research and Development Glennon Brothers Wood Marketing Federation Gem Joinery Swift Brickwork Coleford Brick London School of Economics Office of Public Works