Some Dún Laoghaire doors were slammed in canvassing politicians’ faces in advance of the 2014 local elections if they admitted they supported the then yet to open library, according to local councillor Marie Baker.
“People thought it was a vanity project and too much money would be spent on a public building in what were tough economic times. They didn’t have a concept of what it would become,” the Fine Gael politician says.
In 2015, as cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, it fell to Baker to officially open the DLR LexIcon library which, at a cost of €36.6 million, was perhaps the most significant piece of infrastructure built in the town in over 100 years.
“Some of those same people apologised to me about being so negative about it saying that they couldn’t believe how phenomenal it was,” she recalls.
RM Block
The five-floor library and cultural centre designed by Cork-based architecture firm Carr Cotter Naessens went on to win several awards including the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) international award for excellence in 2016.
Built on a sloped site, the large concrete block is clad in granite with a section of its southern side faced in red brick to blend in with the nearby residential terraces. Some say it looks like a large ship with its bow facing out to sea but visitors have to go inside to fully appreciate this new approach to library design. The interior has a mix of busy open spaces interspersed with quiet study spots, a large children’s library, a gallery and a studio theatre and coffee shop on the ground level. The main materials are concrete and wood.
“There were so many objections but it’s such a family-friendly library. It saved me from many a rainy day at home with young children,” says local woman Sorcha Donohoe, whose children are now 11 and 13.
Donohue grew up in Dún Laoghaire and as a child spent a lot of time in the town’s Carnegie library, the LexIcon’s predecessor. “Libraries were much more stern places then. It was also very dark. I remember that I dropped a book in the bath and my mother had to pay a fine. But, in the LexIcon, my children used to join all the pouffes together to climb around them and nobody said a word.”
DLR LexIcon senior librarian Lucy O’Donnell says the traditional view of librarians shushing you and looking for late fees is gone. “We want everyone to come in with no sense of inspection or expectation to spend any money,” says O’Donnell.
She says libraries are of the few non-religious buildings open to the community that people can just come into and sit down. “It’s a bustling library and cultural centre with no absolute silence through the whole building,” says O’Donnell.
Since 2015, DLR LexIcon has had just under four million visitors, making it the busiest public library in Ireland, as well as the biggest. Everyone from older people looking for a warm spot to read the newspaper, students studying for State exams, freelance workers, parents with young children and tourists drawn inside to look back out at the magnificent views of Dún Laoghaire’s east pier, Scotsman’s Bay to the south and Howth to the north are here.
“The third floor is known as the livingroom and we allow food and drink there. We keep newspapers on the fourth floor – as otherwise they would walk out the door. People do often fall asleep in the library and the best views are on the silent floor at the top of the building,” O’Donnell says.
For the library’s 10th birthday, librarians asked people to write a “love letter to the LexIcon” either by email or anonymously popping it in a box in the library.
“People wrote about the comfort they got from coming in to the library. Little children wrote about seeing magicians, students about getting out of the house to study and one person who was changing their name picked a name from a book on the shelf,” says O’Donnell.
Irish Architecture Foundation director Emmett Scanlon wrote a reflective piece on a casual visit he made to the DLR LexIcon earlier this year. “A child is climbing into a box of books with such agility that I am sure it is not their first time to do so. Another child is horizontal, face down, singing into a shelf, as if they have indexed and checked themselves in. No one is bothered by this. I wonder if I should hang up my coat and join what appears to be a very public party,” he wrote.
We want to encourage people to stay on and maybe go up to hear jazz at Walter’s on Georges Street after a walk on the pier
Scanlon was struck by the lack of barriers to entry and how nobody asked what anyone was doing wandering around on a random Sunday – yes the library is open seven days a week, from 12pm to 4pm on a Sunday.
And while building the library on what was previously an overgrown piece of council land in Moran Park has definitely brought new life to this stretch of the seafront between the People’s Park and the east pier, arguably it has not – as was hoped – provided a link between the seafront and the town’s George’s Street shopping area.
Colette O’Sullivan, chief executive of DLR Chamber of Commerce, says a new community space has developed between the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Marine Hotel and the library. “The People’s Park market has extended all the way up in front of the library and into the green space next to the library and it’s always full on Sundays,” she says.
She does, however, concede that the George’s Street shopping area remains separate and that people walking the pier in Dún Laoghaire can often just get back into their cars or take the Dart home after their stroll.
“We are currently applying for purple flag accreditation [an international award scheme celebrating towns and city centres that manage their night-time economy in a safe and vibrant way] to give people more cultural offerings after 5pm, and the library is very much involved in this,” O’Sullivan adds.
She suggests that as the library is open until 8pm each weekday, there are opportunities to host more art and music events inside and outside the facility. “We want to encourage people to stay on and maybe go up to hear jazz at Walter’s on Georges Street after a walk on the pier. We are planning a route with recommendations for visitors staying in the hotels and people who live here, and the library is a beacon in the midst of this.”
