In this assessment of recent architectural developments in Cork, Louise Cotter investigates the transformation of a familiar icon and the creation of some new ones
The western approach into Cork city follows the wooded banks and river meadows of the Lee and sweeps towards the County Hall, a sentinel at the city gates. The realisation of this tower marks an episode of architectural confidence, confidence in the power of architecture and language of modernism and marks a brief era of economic and cultural vitality in Cork, which is only now re-emerging after the hiatus of the 1970s and 1980s. Built in 1968, the tower was, and still is, the tallest building in Ireland
