With the two existing structures (the Customs
House dating from 1724 and the Crawford School of Art addition
from 1884) clad in brick, the Crawford Art Gallery is an inadvertent
symbol of the mercantile relationship between the Irish and the
Dutch. As brick is not a material readily used in Cork, the origins
of the two early designs indicates a Dutch presence. This consideration
makes Egeraat (who won a competition for the Art Gallery in 1996)
a sensible choice to design the addition that would stitch these
older buildings together. His refreshing approach to the exterior
helps to express the complex of brick-clad pieces as a time line,
each built approximately 100 years apart.
