Arminta Wallace goes behind the scenes at the Office of Public Works, which exerts a significant influence on Irish art and architecture.
If you're out and about in Ireland, and you keep your eyes open, you start to notice three little letters turning up everywhere: O, P and W.
The curved geometric logo of the Office of Public Works is to be found on the covers of weighty government publications and in the lobbies of trendy public buildings.
Even when there's no logo, the chances are that OPW staff are beavering away behind the scenes in all sorts of scenarios of national significance. When a Pope dies, or an Irish soccer team returns triumphant from an international competition, or a river threatens to burst its banks, it's the OPW which organises the necessary scaffolding, barriers and protection systems. It hangs paintings at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, gets desks into secondary schools for Leaving Certificate exam students and buys cars for government departments.
Every now and again its involvement in controversial issues - such as, in recent months, the provision of accommodation for asylum-seekers - brings the OPW into the white-hot glare of media scrutiny. But for the most part, it just keeps on keeping on.
Which may not sound like the stuff of inch-high headlines - behind the scenes, however, the OPW's influence on contemporary art and architecture is considerable, its dual role as designer of new public buildings and caretaker of ancient heritage sites giving it a crucial stake in the creation and presentation of 21st-century Ireland, Inc.
It is, in many ways, an odd situation: venerable State body, founded in 1831, finds itself at the aesthetic cutting edge. But if its head office building at 51 St Stephen's Green is anything to go by, the OPW appears to be revelling in the challenge. The walls of the imposing entrance hall are covered with slabs of variously coloured Irish marble - a throwback to the 1850s, and to one of the building's many previous incarnations as a Museum of Irish Industry.
Walk inside, though, and you walk straight into the future. A steel-and-glass atrium turns a dull courtyard into a light-filled exhibition space: a four-storey link building uses blond wood and brushed metal corridors to give access to office space next door: recent additions and hints that, among its multitude of functions, the OPW manages one of the country's largest and most successful architectural practices.
In these uncommonly pleasant working spaces, people aren't just planning new public buildings - they're planning what kind of art should go into them, as Jacquie Moore of the OPW's Art Management Group explains. "We keep an eye on what the building is about, and who is going to be using it. A public space is not like a gallery.
There isn't necessarily somebody standing guard, to begin with. If you put a work on paper into a reception area, somebody may well come up and pull bits off it. It's also, obviously, difficult to put video or installation art into reception areas. Then you have to consider lighting conditions, humidity - all the things you take for granted in a gallery - which probably aren't ideal in a working environment."
The State art collection currently comprises more than 7,000 pieces of art in hundreds of locations, from Sonja Landweer's small, but exquisitely formed, sculpture in the new glass pavilion at Leinster House to an abstract acrylic painting by Diarmuid McAuliffe - inspired by the Australian outback and by Limerick's industrial architecture - which hangs in the Central Statistics Office in Rathmines. Highlights from the collection can be seen every year in a touring exhibition organised jointly by the Art Management Group and the Department of Finance and Personnel from Northern Ireland. This year's show, "Across Boundaries", will open at Rathfarnham Castle on July 7th.
Purchasing budgets are good, thanks to the government's "per cent for art" scheme which ensures that one per cent of all construction work is devoted to the purchase of art; and policy guidelines ensure that support is given to emerging and local artists. "Last year the quality of the National College of Art and Design graduate work in ceramic and glass was just stunning," says Moore. "It's very exciting to be able to purchase work like that."
Young Irish photographers have also been producing some exceptional work, she says. But the most important aspect of buying art for public buildings has to do with placing pieces in the most appropriate positions. "You've got to think about the building you're buying for. It could be a tax office, or the offices of an educational psychologist. There might be children coming in, or survivors of institutional abuse. So every project is different. In Dublin Castle, for example, we have a Jack Packenham painting which features a Union Jack - and that suits Dublin Castle, since it touches on the history of the castle and the whole Anglo-Irish thing, but it wouldn't be suitable for a local Garda station. We don't have to play it too safe, though."
Meanwhile, a few miles north of the city centre, at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, a stunning restoration job carried out by the OPW has brought the glasshouses back to their 19th-century glory - and won a Europe Nostra award in the process. "There aren't many of those around; and it was well deserved," says the director of the gardens, Peter Wyse-Jackson.
He reckons the collection of glasshouses known as "the curvilinear complex" is one of the most important buildings in Ireland. "The structure is cast-iron, and the restoration used cast-iron as well - which is tricky, expensive and time-consuming. The OPW - which is our parent body - could have easily said it was just too big a job." According to Wyse-Jackson, this high-quality restoration has allowed the garden to reinvent itself for a new generation. Apart from being a glorious place to visit, it has a healthy ongoing programme of exhibitions, both of paintings and of sculpture in context.
A "living exhibition" planned for September involves the arrival of a group of Mayan Indians from Belize, who will build a traditional rainforest hut in the Great Palm House.
Another exotic visitor scheduled for July is the Wollemi Pine, known only as a fossil until it was discovered in Australia's Blue Mountains in 1994. "Somebody said that finding it was the equivalent of finding a dinosaur - alive," says Wyse-Jackson. "It's a very attractive tree which we think will be perfect for Irish gardens," he adds. "Its bark, when mature, looks as if it's covered with chocolate rice crispies."
Last, but certainly not least, of the new arrivals scheduled for summer is an orchid currently being grown in Singapore - which will be named "Bertie Ahern".
Plant conservation is Wyse-Jackson's passion, and a tour through the glasshouses in his company offers a fascinating glimpse into another world altogether as he talks about microchips being put into rare cycads in South Africa to catch smugglers, the Dragon Tree from the Canaries - which, when you cut it, "bleeds" a red liquid - and how we're being short-changed in the banana department.
Bananas, it seems, don't have to be yellow and curved: the reason we think they are is that only one variety, called Cavendish, is grown for sale to the First World. A banana expert is due at the Botanic Gardens shortly to advise on their collection.
Closer to home, conservation of Ireland's 850 native species of flowering plants - many of which are under threat from a cocktail of dangers including road development, changing agricultural practices and the relentless march of golf courses - is also a priority.
"Botanic gardens all over the world - of which there are 2,500 - are very aware that they have been accused of being bio-pirates in the past," says Wyse-Jackson. "So the emphasis now is on achieving a balance between conservation and education. And here in Glasnevin we're playing our part. In September we'll have a scientific convention, and in October we'll host a three-day conference of a global partnership on plant conservation, with representatives from about 80 countries discussing the implementation of the UN convention on bio-diversity."
Arguably, such high-level conferences could not take place in Dublin if the glasshouses in Glasnevin were falling down - another example of the way in which the work of the OPW feeds into the image of Ireland at home and abroad.
But with an enormous range of core functions on its hands, from facilities management to flood relief, is the aesthetic perspective something the OPW itself regards as important?
Absolutely, says chairman Seán Benton. More importantly, he adds, it has filtered into the political arena. "There has been a growing awareness, at government level, of the built environment and how it not only presents an image of Ireland, but actually shapes the way we live and the way we behave," he says.
He points to the current plans for decentralisation of government departments, in which the OPW is involved at design and project management level, as being of vital importance for the future.
"While politicians don't get into the details, there is a constant emphasis on good design - and on how, whether it be in Longford or Sligo or Killarney, the government presence should represent the dignity of the State, democratic access, and so on. And also, hopefully, stimulate urban regeneration. I'm not sure that, 15 or 20 years ago, you would have had politicians speaking that way," he says.
Speaking of decentralisation, isn't the OPW due to move to Trim? Benton looks around at his cool, clean Georgian office. "Yes, we are, and I'm really looking forward to it," he says. "We have a fantastic plan - we had an in-house competition among OPW architects, and . . ."
And he's off, explaining - by tracing imaginary buildings with his hands on the gleaming surface of his mahogany board-room table - how the design was inspired by the shape of a Tara brooch, with an entrance which sweeps through in a daring curve from front to back.
How would Seán Benton sum up the OPW? "We're the services arm of government," he says. "We're identified with a lot of glamorous projects, whether it's an extension to the National Gallery or designing a new National Theatre: but then we're also involved in designing two-room Garda stations in remote parts of the west of Ireland. We get lots of credit for the work that we do, and a lot of our buildings are winning awards because of their quality. We also get criticised for the time it takes, and for cost over-runs." Are the criticisms justified? Yes, he says - and no.
"I'd be the last person to claim that we're perfect. But a picture is often presented of the one project which runs over budget - while if you take an overview of all our normal building projects over the past seven years, the cost over-run on projects which, between them, cost well over a billion euro, was 0.03 per cent."
He insists that the OPW's strength is the quality of its design and procurement personnel. "We've managed to hold on to some very, very talented people. We can't offer the huge rewards that are available in the private sector, but we can offer challenging and rewarding work. I would hope that people judge us, not on the work that goes wrong, but on the overall achievement."
Time will tell. But in the meantime, those three little letters look set to go marching on.
• Across Boundaries is open to the public at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, July 8-30
The OPW in action
July 7 "Across Boundaries", an exhibition of State art, opens at Rathfarnham Castle, then goes on tour around Ireland, North and South
July 19-27 For the 125th anniversary of St Stephen's Green being under OPW care, there will be a series of celebrations which includes an exhibition of photographs - some historic, some newly commissioned - in The Atrium at 51 St Stephen's Green, and concerts which include a specially-commissioned piece of music
July 23 The RTÉ Proms kicks off at Farmleigh House. Concerts by both RTÉ orchestras, with a kids' day on the Sunday. Apply for tickets at www.farmleigh.ie
