The Quaint, the Ruinous, and Corporate Realism: Popular Architectures of Irish Neoliberalism

Abstract

This dissertation concerns the aesthetics of neoliberal Ireland’s ‘popular’ architecture. It argues that such architectural aesthetics serve as material for a critical reading of ideological images of contemporary Ireland, as processed by the economic forces of neoliberal globalisation since the 1990s. This argument claims that the popular architectures analysed serve as mise en scène for these ideological images. The thesis tests the utility of certain aesthetic terms as ways to account for the different roles of architectural imagery in the enabling of Irish neoliberalism. This era of Irish neoliberalism has largely been defined by the courting of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), implicating Ireland’s longer history of attracting FDI since the late 1950s. ‘Irish neoliberalism’ is synonymous with popular terms: the ‘Celtic Tiger’ (economy), of the early-to-mid 199os until the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis, followed by the lesser-used term, the ‘Celtic Phoenix’ economy, of the early 2010s until the approximate present. These terms serve as frames within the dissertation’s historical diagram of neoliberal Ireland. The ideological images produced by these histories contain contradictions between Ireland’s claims to national, cultural authenticity and traditionalism, and its desired facilitation of tech-sector capital, with which has come a globalised entrepreneurial culture and aesthetics. These images also correspond to conceptions or philosophies of history as produced by neoliberalism, most notably, the ‘End of History’ thesis associated with Francis Fukuyama, and with liberal presentism, and anxiety as to the potential ending of this liberal present. The End of History concept serves as an important structure against which the dissertation critiques the subtle ways the ideological images analysed—via architectural aesthetics—historicise neoliberalism in the Irish context. In order to dissect the ways in which Irish popular architecture serves as an index for these ideological images, the dissertation develops novel terms of architectural criticism, corresponding to architectural-aesthetic categories of Ireland’s ‘popular’ or ‘low cultural’ architecture. These terms include the quaint, the ruinous, and corporate realism, each of which constitute a body chapter of the thesis. Through these terms of criticism, the transmission of such ideological images—and their internal contradictions—can be deeply understood. This understanding furthers the project of architectural history and criticism in the contemporary Irish context, and provides tools which may be applied to other geographies.