Group 91: The Dublin Competition That Became a Turning Point for Irish Architecture

Meeting House Square, Temple Bar. Image Courtesy of Sean Harrington Architects

The veteran Irish architecture critic Shane O'Toole once remarked that when traveling in Europe in the 1970s, "The universal comment was . Now, in less than 50 years, we've gone to a Pritzker Prize and two RIBA Royal Gold Medallists in five years." He attributes this change in perception to a design competition that launched the careers of several of Ireland's award-winning architects of today. This was the Temple Bar Framework Plan competition of 1991 in the center of Dublin, the capital of Ireland, which was won by a group of architects still in their 30s, running under the name of Group 91.