Sir, - Frank McDonald, in a well illustrated article, has condemned Dublin Airport as a mess (The Irish Times, March 4th). His criticism was directed at the architectural composition and quality of the place. But his wholesale condemnation of the work of Aer Rianta in Dublin Airport comes as a surprise to those of us who think that Dublin Airport is one of the more enjoyable airports to be in.
Frank McDonald's irritation with Aer Rianta stems from the way in which a new pier, Pier D, is to be attached to the old airport building, a List One building, which was awarded the RIAI Triennial Gold Medal in 1943. He highlights a real problem: how to allow an old building its integrity while simultaneously using it in a modern context. But to condemn Aer Rianta out of hand because it has no overall master plan raises a question. Perhaps it is the organic aspect of Dublin Airport, its human scale, which makes it attractive.
The arrival area in Dublin, where seats are available for waiting relatives and friends and maps and text refer to the history of the city, where you can have coffee and buy books or newspapers, make this place so much more welcoming than the corresponding space at Dusseldorf, where those who collect passengers stand in a corridor, part of a master plan designed to lead you straight down into the departure area of the trains. But the corridor is a busy place, where you cannot relax and there is no way of knowing that you are indeed in Dusseldorf or even in Germany! The functional dominates.
In Dublin the colourful Malton prints at the customs and the portraits and extracts from our Nobel prize-winners at the gates of the older pier, along with many other displays in other parts of the building, give a distinctive Irish identity. Is it right to suggest that beauty can be found only in places that are part of a functional plan? Is there not also attraction in places which grew as the occasion required it, as did most medieval towns which we admire today for their organic scale?
I would love to walk with Frank McDonald through Dublin Airport and together see the human face of a very busy place. - Yours, etc., Prof Anngret Simms,
Department of Geography, University College Dublin.