Ronnie Tallon

Dr. Ronnie Tallon (1927-2014) was one of the most influential Irish architects of the last century and Scott Tallon Walker, Tallon’s practice, is one of the leading architectural firms in Europe. An unapologetic follower of Mies, Tallon’s work is uncompromisingly modern. Throughout his career, he delivered buildings that have stood the test of time. He is part of the identity of Ireland and Irish architecture. Dr. Tallon was also well known as a patron of the arts. He was responsible for many of Ireland’s best known art collections. Dr Tallon

I have been obsessed with the simplicity of the square from my earlier days as a practising architect. I realised then that most buildings inevitably need to expand, to grow in a natural way, where the expanded structure retained an expression of entity. Various efforts at realising this necessity led me to developing a multi-cellular system of building based on a square – the most logical structural form, capable of expansion equally on all four sides, capable of expansion horizontally and vertically, capable of creating ever evolving space as expressed by Max Bill in his teachings at the Bauhaus. This theory was applied to the design for Galway University using concrete structure and with steel structure in the design of the Carroll Cigarette Factory at Dundalk, now adapted for educational use by the Dundalk Institute of Technology. The Carroll building expresses the freedom possible within the discipline of a rigid structural logic. This obsession with the square has inadvertently persisted within my more abstract drawings, allowing me extraordinary freedom of expression with the discipline of the square. It allows me to explore within very definite limits. This set of images is from a series based on four squares.

Ronnie Tallon, 2013