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The Gallery of Photography

• Location: Temple Bar
• Architect: O’Donnell + Tuomey
• Completed: 1996

The Gallery of Photography is a wafer thin building grafted onto a blank brick wall of the Irish Film Centre. Its reflective façade is of Portland stone, a material used in many historic buildings in Dublin.  The façade itself forms an abstract image of a camera with the large central window symbolising the camera lens and operating as a screen for films and photographs projected from the National Photography Archive opposite.

The different materials used in the windows create a lively mix of visual effects between transparency and opaqueness, which have associations with the nature of photography. The basement houses the darkrooms, the ground floor contains a reception and office space while the upper floors of the gallery can be sectioned off with sliding screens, which double the exhibition space for larger exhibitions.