The Bâdgir (Windcatcher) of Galway
While reading a recent edition of the Galway Advertiser I was
dismayed as much by the report of the council debate on the uncertain future of
the new Pálás arthouse cinema at the junction of Merchants Road Lower and Dock
Road as I was by the use of the old computer generated design image of the
building itself.
The
Pálás Arthouse Cinema from the south-east.
A recent ‘real’ photograph, taken from the same angle as you turn
the corner on Dock Rd and head towards Jury’s Inn, would have revealed a
building and would have revealed a design nuance, that for me at least, is as
evocative an architectural feature as any in the city, if not further afield.
The
Pálás Cinema behind Longwalk rooftops
In its most profound manifestation architecture as a human endeavour
has sought to enable mankind’s dialogue with the Gods, and from the very
beginning, has involved creating a structural conversation that reached out to
the heavens. I think of the upright carved pillars of the Neolithic hunter-gatherer
temple complex in Göbekli Tepe, Turkey from c. 10,500 BC, the ziggurats and
pyramids of Sumer and Egypt, the entases of Greek and Roman worship, the high-arched
Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe, to that most modern manifestation of
human outreach, the soaring Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai.
In appreciating architecture however, particularly the architecture
of the profound, both religious and secular, there is generally an onus placed on
us as mortals to experience a designed harmony of the whole and to participate
in and submit to the unity of that vision of engagement. What really excites me
though, in architecture, are those occasions often at the periphery to the
grand vision, to the worship, when a chanced-upon structural nuance, created either
accidentally or by design, exists where functionality and flamboyance suddenly
fuse and surprisingly confuse.
The
ventilation vents at south-east corner of Pálás cinema.
Every time I turn the Dock Road corner and draw close to the Pálás
site, but most particularly in the morning sunlight, one such architectural
nuance always makes me reflect, always makes me engage with the building more.
The nuance? The cold mundane steel ventilation grills that you can see on the south-east
back wall of the Pálás arthouse, which both in function and design remind me so much of
the Bâdgirs of Yazd, a city in Iran that I had the pleasure of visiting about
five years ago.
The
Rooftops of Yazd, Iran
Four Bâdgirs cooling a domed Ab-Anbar water reservoir
A
Bâdgir in Yazd
Bâdgirs or Wind-catchers (from Persian bâd “wind” and gir “catcher”
) are an ancient architectural feature of the hot and arid central Iranian
plateau, and in the simplest single-sided version are designed to draw in the main
prevailing wind creating an airflow through the building, sometimes passing
over columns of wetted curtains, and by allowing the air to exit on the leeward
side, cool the interior. In the city of Yazd in Iran traditional wind-catchers
are often engineered to be used in combination with the qanat underground water systems that bring cool snow-fed waters
from the surrounding high mountains to establish almost a refrigeration effect.
In modern times the engineering principles underpinning Bâdgirs have become a
feature of Sustainable Architecture in many parts of the world.
Bâdgir
engineering principles
In an e-mail conversation with the architect of the Pálás arthouse
cinemas ( there are three cinemas contained within the building on three
levels), Tom dePaor (who must be
equally frustrated by having his beautiful building lie fallow) he explained
his design for the ventilation grills as,
“My intention was only to express, if
not exaggerate the air intake and extract of the building – something which is
normally supressed in contemporary construction.”
Returning to my original declaration of love for the nuances of
function and flamboyance in architecture this is the reason I find the
wind-catchers of Galway’s Pálás cinema so appealing. And to further emphasise
this attraction Tom dePaor also detailed another feature of his ventilation
design when he explained, that the air intake for the lower cinema comes
through the carved-out letters of the cinema itself.
Air
Intake for ventilation is through the Pálás lettering
I do hope the future of this iconic and sustainable building will be
sorted out soon. In a sad way a sign on the site somehow sums-up the current
impasse.
Sign
in rubble tip on Pálás site
