As he climbs to his garret office, Geoffrey Spratt's head must swim with promises of a fleet of Steinway pianos. Running Cork School of Music from an attic in Moore's Hotel cannot be easy, but for Spratt - and his staff and students - the dawning of a bright tomorrow makes the temporary discomfort worthwhile.
It is, after all, merely a variation on the long-endured inadequacies of the premises they have just left on Union Quay, on the other side of the Lee. Designed in 1956 by Edmund P.J. O'Flynn, and the first music school of its kind in Ireland, it had to be shared with RT╔ Cork for many years. Its shortcomings also imposed the dispersal of several of the school's units to locations around the city.
The recent Europe-wide invitation for submissions for the construction of a new school produced a shortlist of three designs, with Jarvis Projects winning the contract for what was to be one of the first public-private partnerships commissioned by the Department of Education and Science. The company's £46 million proposal insists on the demolition of the old school, however, and An Taisce has appealed Cork Corporation's decision to grant planning permission. Now everything is on hold.
Founded in 1878, Cork School of Music was housed on Union Quay from 1902, in a building replaced in 1956 by O'Flynn's. Its red-brick limestone-trimmed facade has been familiar to students and parents ever since. It was quickly outgrown, but plans in the mid-1980s to expand to adjacent sites fell victim to recession.
Part of Cork Institute of Technology, the school began a Bachelor of Music degree programme in 1995, followed by MA and PhD courses, all of which are now being provided in a series of former hotel bedrooms, for one-to-one tuition. Senior staff and management join Spratt in the attic. They don't all fit, so the school still uses a few classrooms, the recital hall and the recording studio over on Union Quay.
Had Jarvis's somewhat optimistic planning time frame been kept to, Union Quay would now be rubble, with the new building likely to be finished by 2003. An Taisce is appealing not only on the basis of the (debatable) architectural quality of the existing school but also on the issue of the height, bulk and scale of its proposed replacement.
An Taisce is onto something. Jarvis has revised its drawings and photomontages, following discussions with planning officers - the black polished granite for the theatre is to be replaced by local sandstone, for example, and the building has been reduced from six to five storeys. What the pictures make clear is that the new building will look best at night.
In designing what Jarvis expects to take pride of place "as a future civic building of major interest", Murray O'Laoire, the architects, would have been aware of the implied constraints of the high-buildings policy prepared for Cork by the Urban Initiatives consultancy. Although the consultants' advice has been to refuse all high buildings within the historic centre and the area developed in the 1860s plan of Cork, their report declares that "the rule cannot obviously apply to civic and cultural buildings".
Without explaining why, Urban Initiatives adds that the school of music could be viewed as a special case, although, prior to the modifications, the application "presented a building where the bulk and massing was considered to pose a significant impact on the river channel". Even with the changes, Urban Initiatives is ambiguous about the design, describing it now as both "much more acceptable" and "a fine example of modern architecture".
Cork School of Music is being squeezed by the pressure of its own needs, the impetus of Cork's designation as European City of Culture for 2005 - for which the new building could be an enormous declaration of intent - and the effort to avoid repeating mistakes that have been made not merely in the city as a whole but, crucially, along both sides of the south channel of the river, which includes Union Quay.
An Taisce's appeal to An Bord Pleanβla has provoked disappointment, even dismay, at the school and in City Hall, for the Jarvis project is seen as innovative, with the company building, fitting and equipping the school, then, over the next 25 years, managing its non-educational operations. The State will begin to repay Jarvis as soon as the school opens, so that by the end of the contract it will own the building. This is, understandably, regarded as too good a deal for the school to lose; its achievement implies recognition of its teaching, orchestras, quartets, trios, choirs and solo singers.
Jarvis believes its design will greatly enhance the architectural and cultural life of the city, but because it is the subject of an appeal, the company does not want to comment further on the merits of the project, or on the planning appeal.
But the proposal makes lip-smacking reading for anyone familiar with the old school: covering an area of more than 13,400 square metres, it will be the first purpose-built institution of its kind in the Republic - although that was said of O'Flynn's building, too - with specialist tuition areas, rehearsal hall, drama suite, recording studio, lecture rooms, theatre, library, cafe, common rooms and offices, integrating cutting-edge information-technology and acoustic systems.
And the Steinways? The contract lets Jarvis equip the school by investing in top-quality instruments that will outlive the 25-year deal. Hence the heart-lifting fleet of pianos, whose value will go up over the next quarter of a century.
