Overview

For the Love of Ireland’s Buildings takes us on a tour of our built heritage, from ancient monuments to Modern architecture. For over fifty years the iconic Roadstone Calendar celebrated Ireland’s architectural treasures and triumphs of engineering, with artwork by Michael Lunt. Drawing on gems from that archive, the artist explores Ireland’s rich architectural legacy. Highlights include ancient sites, beautiful eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture, attractive shop fronts, atmospheric workers’ cottages, key places of work, twentieth-century innovations, and notable engineering projects, among them lighthouses, harbours, and bridges. Pen portraits from the original Roadstone calendars by architect Sean Rothery, writer Bernard Share and experts such as maritime historian John de Courcy Ireland detail key historical, architectural and environmental facts and stress the ongoing need for restoration and reinvention. For the Love of Ireland’s Buildings is a must for lovers of Ireland’s rich and at times surprising built heritage.

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9781788494465

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Reviews

The artist responsible for half a century’s worth of stunning illustrations is Michael Lunt, and his work has gladdened my heart ever since I first laid eyes on one of those calendars a very long time ago. The buildings he has drawn and coloured in meticulous detail range from the Rock of Cashel on the dust cover to the railway station and a row of shops and houses in Ballinasloe, and from the original terminal at Dublin Airport to a 19th century terrace house in Dun Laoghaire. At first glance many of them look like photographs, but they are not. They are more than photographic; they convey instantly the appearance of the building, but after that first glance the subtleties of perspective and colour result in an image that is closer to a Platonic ideal than the reality of stone, brick or concrete … I cannot commend this book highly enough to anyone interested in our built heritage, and concerned about its preservation -- Tuam Herald

Author Information

Michael Lunt designed for several leading Dublin advertising agencies during the 1950s and 1960 until he became an independent graphic designer in 1968. His experience spans a period of technological revolution: from early days working with T-squares and metal type to today’s digital world. Roadstone, and later CRH of which Roadstone was a founder member, became Michael Lunt’s principal client and patron. He designed his first Roadstone Calendar in 1962, continuing with the commission for the next forty-nine years. The Roadstone calendar hung in thousands of Irish homes and businesses, and the art reflects the artist’s love of Ireland’s built heritage. Michael Lunt also taught design at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art and Technology, while executing major projects for AIB and IDA and creating the initial design for the magazine Technology Ireland for the IIRS. Having spent most of his working life in Dublin, Michael Lunt is now retired and lives in Wexford.

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