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Tactile Learning: The Making of an Attitude
Author(s)
Date Issued
2016-02-01
Date Available
2017-08-01T01:00:16Z
Abstract
There is an interesting case in the history of dock building along the River Liffey that is illustrative of the relevance of one’s background in shaping one’s perceptual horizon and thus the manner in which the environment is attended to and the design process is undertaken. History documents that the acclaimed Scottish engineer John Rennie (1761 -1821) was author of the three docks built eastward of the Custom House in Dublin. This trio consists of the original dock, or Revenue Dock, completed 1796 (now in-filled), as well as George’ s Dock and the Inner Basin, both built by 1824. Yet the first dock was actually designed and constructed in tandem with the Custom House by James Gandon (1743 - 1823). Though this fact is clearly recorded by Mulvany in his biographical work on Gandon, and tentatively acknowledged much later by McParland, the record of citation evidence has slowly mutated across nearly two centuries to accommodate an altered perception of the increasingly specialized roles of engineer and architect. What is clear, from Rennie’s well kept business records, is that once awarded the contract to build the two additional docks and associated warehouses by the Commissioners of Custom and Excise in 1814, Rennie was in a position to assess the condition of the original Revenue Dock in late October of 1820 in an attempt to estimate the cause for its failure . Based on this assessment , three sides of this original dock in addition to its entrance channel were to be largely rebuilt, following Rennie’s untimely death in 1821, by resident engineer John Aird (1760 - 1832) under the supervision of Thomas Telford (1757 - 1834) by 1822. Presumably the subsequent rebuilding of substantial portions of the Revenue Dock are responsible for the muddied record of authorship. Regardless, there remains substantial documentation that attests to both Gandon’s role in the design of this first dock, as well as the significant differences between Rennie’s and Gandon ’s approach to the design of these structures.
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
Cork University Press
Journal
The Irish Review
Volume
Winter 2015
Issue
51
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
ISBN
9781909005709
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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