of de Blacam and Meagher is Ireland's exhibition at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition to be held this autumn in Venice. The exhibition will address de Blacam and Meagher Architects' built and unbuilt portfolio of the last 33 years and seeks to communicate the cultural landscape of Ireland through their seminal work.

A Culture Ireland initiative in partnership with the Arts Council of Ireland, the exhibition is commissioned by the Irish Architecture Foundation under the directorship of Nathalie Weadick. The exhibition concept takes the form of a book unbound, containing volumes of drawing and photographic reproductions from the archives, contemporary photography and readings of the work with commentaries. The commentaries come from a cross-generational collective, who share an encounter with the architecture of de Blacam and Meagher. Their commentaries offer a contemporary and critical view of the practice and its positioning in the wider context of Irish architecture.

Nine thousand volumes are presented as paper stacks on oak joinery in the eighteenth century oratory of the Irish monk St.Gall near Piazza San Marco. The installation within the oratory acts as both archive and reading room. The public are invited to read the work and take it away as a folio. Over time the stacks are depleted by the actions of the public, until finally we are left only with the furnishings. The archive will, in essence be consumed.

of de Blacam and Meagher is curated by Tom dePaor, Peter Maybury, Alice Casey and Cian Deegan. While avoiding rhetoric and representation, they have created a three-dimensional evocation of a concept, which connects the public to the subject through invited interpretations and in turn reveals the critical significance of the practice. They arrange the works as they exist and as they are understood.

The exhibition has two speeds; one is the immediate visual impact created by imposing paper stacks, scaled to physically and theatrically occupy the space; the second a deep and enveloping engagement of an archive, encouraging the act of reading and observation, research and questioning
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