Irish towns at the heart of new exhibition launching in Mayo this week

Opening on August 16 in Áras Inis Gluaire, Belmullet, as part of a national tour across Ireland in 2024 and 2025, “The Reason of Towns” is a new, engaging and ambitious exhibition of the work of one of Ireland’s most renowned architects, Valerie Mulvin.

This exhibition is intended to become a public occasion for the telling and retelling of true stories, lost traditions and possible futures for Irish towns and the people who live in them.

Mark Ruddy, a Belmullet-based architect said they are hoping the exhibition starts a conversation about the importance of their town in a broader context.

“Through this impressive showcase of the pioneering work of Valerie Mulvin and through the open-invite community workshop ‘Talks of the Town’, we hope to ignite a conversation on the importance of our town in a regional and national context as Belmullet celebrates two hundred years since its planned establishment in 1824.”

Organised around a series of immersive display ‘characters’ intended to engage and communicate to audiences in a variety of ways, the writings and buildings of Mulvin and her practice McCullough Mulvin Architects are exhibited through models, drawings, texts, and a series of slides, notes, personal memorabilia, building fragments and more.

In addition, “The Reason of Towns” exhibition also presents three newly commissioned films including a new interview with Valerie Mulvin by broadcaster Vincent Woods, reflecting on her work and the subject of the exhibition.

Emmett Scanlon, Director of the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF), said Valerie Mulvin is a remarkable and tenacious architect.

“She has immersed herself in the subject and object of the Irish town as part of national and global urban traditions for decades. The team and I at the IAF are so proud to have made this exhibition in her company, and to be taking her work as an architect and all that it reveals right into the heart of town communities.”

“From our work in towns we know there is a strong appetite to address issues of dereliction, vacancy, and repair, and for what is often sincere local pride of place to be made real, to be translated into high quality buildings and public spaces for all.”

“I urge everyone in Belmullet to visit this exhibition, enjoy the work of one of Ireland’s most revered architects and come join the workshops and talks.”

Valerie Mulvin, Director of McCullough Mulvin Architects and whose work is the subject of the exhibition, said: “It’s a great honour to be working with the IAF to share my excitement and curiosity about the extraordinary character of our towns. In ‘The Reason of Towns’ I want to celebrate their geometry, their materiality and their potential and to talk about the particular and the universal, to rediscover these great spaces, underpinned by the material qualities of their stones and walls and yards.”

“With ‘The Reason of Towns’, I hope we can start a conversation about the value of the local, about using and reusing everything that already exists, and what it means to share space in towns, among unique environments and communities.”