ON THE TOWN/Catherine Foley: The champagne flowed as heads craned up to look at the magnificent Millennium Wing at the National Gallery of Ireland. It was a night of sparkling ball-gowns, elegant tuxedos and a collection of 69 breathtaking Impressionist paintings, waiting quietly upstairs to be viewed by the gala throng. Feelings of anticipation were high as the guests entered from Clare Street.
Scotsman Gordon Benson and Tynesider Alan Forsyth, the two architects responsible for the design of the gallery's new wing, were both bursting with enthusiasm and excitement.
Benson spoke intensely about the building's design features. Look up, he said, pointing to the heavens: "We had to create an extension of the city; it's like a hinge between the old and the new building." Dublin, he added, is described in architectural circles as "the city of the Knight's move" because, walking through it, we must carry the memory of places in our minds, turning corners as we go. It's a chess metaphor, of course.
In the new wing, he said, "you come into a cube, the light box". He described Newgrange as a key influence on the design. "When you walk in through the north-facing door, you're welcomed by light."
At midday you see the sun shine through in a direct line, passing through the high-up windows, hitting angles and walls, creating a light-show of colours. The sculptor, Imogen Stuart, listened attentively. "The key to the building is light. We polarised the light," Benson said. Ah. We all looked up again.
Benson and Forsyth, who won the open competition to design the Millennium Wing, first started working together in the late 1960s. Their practice, which is in London, "is like a family, it's like a studio space", said Forsyth. Guests milled around to meet the two great men.
Carmel Naughton, chairwoman of the board of the National Gallery of Ireland, stood at the door welcoming guests. She was dressed in a striking Jen Kelly gown, Edwardian in style,with silver and grey candy-stripes swirling up around her. "I'm on a high," she said, smiling at the new arrivals. After almost six years as the first woman to chair the gallery's board, she steps down in March.
"This was the icing on the cake," she added, not forgetting to list the gallery's research, acquisitions and education programme as being "very important" too.
Other guests included Declan Collier, chairman of Esso (which sponsors a number of education initiatives at the gallery), who was there with his wife, Jan Winter. Antoinette Murphy, of the Pepper Canister Gallery, arrived in a sparkling white Ib Jorgensen jacket, with her husband, Patrick Murphy, chairman of the Arts Council, who was sparkling himself in a black tuxedo.
A string quartet - Niamh Molloy, Nicole Hudson, Róisín Nic Athlaoich and Conor O'Brien - from the Royal Irish Academy of Music played Mozart and Bach. Seán Tinney, former president of the RDS and former gallery board member with his daughter, Deirdre Tinney, was there also.
Writer Anne Haverty attended with Anthony Cronin. Frank X. Buckley was there with Dr Michael Burns, who sported a red velvet waistcoat with a dramatic pin of diamonds and sapphires on his lapel. Barney Whelan, of the ESB, and his partner, Mags Gowen, were preparing to see the paintings.
The gong had gone. It was time to ascend and see the works of artists including Eugène Boudin, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. Silence fell on the viewers then.