SEÁN BILLINGS: DUBLINER SEÁN Billings, who has died aged 70, was a master of facades, working with some of the world's leading architects and structural engineers on projects as diverse as the new national library in Kazakhstan, Denis O'Brien's Digicel headquarters in Jamaica and the Halley VI research station in Antarctica.
At his funeral on Thursday in the Unitarian Church, St Stephen’s Green, he was described as a wonderful man with a wicked sense of humour, a mover and shaker and dreamer of dreams, a great guy to work for, a bit of a rogue who never said a bad word about anybody and a great mentor to architects and structural engineers.
“Seán was one of Ireland’s great stars,” architect Des McMahon said. “He was genuinely inventive – it oozed out of every fibre of his being – and he provided us with a fluency we wouldn’t otherwise have in that single most important element – glass. He was also a wonderful communicator, with an ability to make people feel at ease.”
Born in Ballybough, he was reared by his grandmother in Clonliffe Gardens, attending the local St Canice’s school and then North Strand tech to study draughtsmanship. At the age of 15, he started as a junior steelwork draughtsman in Smith Pearson (SP), going to night school to study engineering, though he never finished.
Billings went to Germany in 1960 to do a year-long apprenticeship in a revolutionary aluminium fabrication plant, AWS in Singen, Baden-Wurtenburg, where the ill-fated Zeppelin airships had previously been manufactured. Aluminium was very much the new material of the time, and he quickly saw its potential.
In 1965, after establishing SP’s aluminium division, he set up Aluminium Systems Ltd with John O’Connor, making shopfronts and conservatories. The first sign that it could have a global future came with commissions to design and manufacture components for the homes of two British architects – Michael Hopkins and Ian Ritchie.
These high-profile projects led to a series of larger commissions in the 1970s, including the Arts Block in Trinity College, designed by Ahrends Burton Koralek; AIB’s headquarters in Ballsbridge and Irish Life’s headquarters on Lower Abbey Street (both by Robinson Keefe Devane), and the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, by Norman Foster.
In 1984, he set up Seán Billings Design Associates Ltd (which later became known as BDA) – one of the world’s first consultancy firms specialising in facade design – after selling the manufacturing business to FEI, an American cladding company with a manufacturing facility in Ireland. BDA then became consultants to FEI.
BDA worked on the design of composite stone cladding systems for a number of skyscrapers in Philadelphia and New York, which included one of the World Trade Center buildings in Lower Manhattan, adjacent to the Twin Towers. Incredibly, these contracts turned FEI into Ireland’s second largest volume exporter in the 1980s.
Seán Billings went on to build up a global network of associates – facade, structural and environmental engineers, architects and material scientists in London, Glasgow, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, New York, Toronto, Johannesburg, Singapore and Sydney – with whom he worked on various projects, availing of their specialist skills.
At home, BDA were cladding consultants for Sam Stephenson’s innovative Bord na Móna headquarters on Lower Baggot Street and the Smurfit Group’s headquarters in Clonskeagh. Billings also designed the original cladding system on Norman Foster’s University of East Anglia building – though he didn’t make the panels that corroded.
BDA acted as facade consultants on a wide range of important buildings in Ireland over recent years, including the new Criminal Courts complex on Parkgate Street, designed by Henry J Lyons and Partners, and the Grand Canal Theatre as well as three adjoining office buildings designed by international “starchitect” Daniel Libeskind.
Libeskind was so impressed by Seán Billings that he hired BDA to act as cladding consultants for the Kö-Bogen office and retail complex in Düsseldorf. Another starchitect, Santiago Calatrava, engaged BDA to help with a sliding glass roof for the new station at the World Trade Center and the twisting (though unbuilt) Chicago Spire.
BDA also worked with Calatrava on his Peace Bridge in Calgary, Alberta, as well as the 50-storey Warsaw Spire in Poland with Belgian architects Jaspers Eyers. Other projects in the pipeline include Herzog de Meuron’s new wing for the Tate Modern in London and Jestico Whiles’ refurbishment of the Swiss Centre on Leicester Square.
Other projects in London include the five-star W Hotel in the same area, also by Jestico Whiles, and their Aloft Excel Hotel in Docklands, as well as the bespoke curtain walling of Nexus place, designed by Sturgis Associates, and the jewel-like glass facade of an office renovation by Future Systems in Oxford Street.
Further afield, BDA were consultants for de Blacam and Meagher’s Digicel headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica; Grafton Architects’ Bocconi University faculty building in Milan, which won the World Building of the Year award in 2008; the Khalifa Bin Zayed National Stadium in Abu Dhabi and a range of projects in Ukraine.
The roll-call of Irish buildings on which Seán Billings acted as facade consultant include the Eircom headquarters near Heuston Station, designed by Reddy Architecture; the Monte Vetro office complex at Grand Canal Dock, by OMP; Pier E at Dublin Airport, by Pascal + Watson, and RKD’s Biosciences Building for Trinity College.
In his spare time Billings sailed Condor catamarans competitively in the 1970s and 1980s with Bray Sailing Club, becoming Irish champion at one point. He was member of the National Yacht Club, Dún Laoghaire, where he raced Dragons in the 1990s. Latterly, he used to take Rebel, a rare surviving timber Dragon, around Dalkey Island.
His son Colman, an industrial designer, now runs BDA, having joined the firm in 1992. He has worked on the detailed design, testing and installation of major projects such as Portcullis House in London for Michael Hopkins Partners and the eye-catching “blobby” Selfridges department store in Birmingham for Future Systems.
In 2008, Seán Billings was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in recognition of his innovative support for architects and engineers and for extending the boundaries of both disciplines.
He is survived by his wife Colette, who was also his business partner, and children Niamh, Eoin, Colman and Ines.
Seán Billings: born March 8th, 1942. Died July 10th, 2012.