Dublin - Creation Occupation Destruction

The subject of this book is Dublin, the arc of the city scrutinised through a new lens - its elusive originality, as Niall McCullough says, composed of the city that was made, then the unintended way in which it was used, then how it was destroyed - creation, occupation and destruction.

He sets out to document our losses, and by doing this he recovers for our imagination lost spaces, streets and entire quarters, the relationship between people and space. Presented through an introduction and three essays, with almost 400 photographs from the 1840s to the 1980s, the vanished city becomes an operatic actor in the drama of what it is to live in a city - this city - and reminds us what gives it originality. At a time when the swing of cranes and obsessive office development looms over every square inch of our former city of houses, it is more urgent than ever to add weight to contemporary discourse on the city, putting an serious value on what remains to jolt us into recognition of what is still - just about - unique about living in Dublin and not in any other city.

Dublin - Creation, Occupation, Destruction is designed by Unthink and is available in hardback.

It was selected for the 2023 100 Archive, won an ICAD Bell for Design Print, and was awarded an International Typographic Awards Certificate of Excellence. It won the 2024 Architecture Book of the Year Award for History, whose judges described the book as:

More a love-poem rather than architectural text, this astonishingly original appreciation of Dublin owes much to the writings of W.G. Sebald or films of Wim Wenders. The author’s deep knowledge of his home city is also entwined in affinity with the rich literary tradition of Joyce and others. Copious undated monochrome photographs carry a haunting quality, like Dublin seen in reverie. As a posthumous publication, it is a fitting finale for a distinguished career as architect and writer on Ireland’s buildings, towns and cities.