In this episode, Emmett Scanlon talks to Ellen Rowley, architectural and cultural historian. The podcast covers Ellen's discovery of buildings and architecture through the close noticing of the world around her, the role and value of history in architecture, when history starts and, what buildings do. ABOUT ELLEN ROWLEY Ellen Rowley is Assistant Professor in Modern Irish Architecture at the School of Architecture, Planning + Environmental Policy, UCD. She is an architectural and cultural historian, a teacher and a writer. Interested in architectural obsolescence, the intersection of social histories and buildings, and the place of the Catholic Church in Ireland’s built environment, she has published extensively including Housing, Architecture and the Edge Condition (2019, Routledge, Taylor + Francis); and (co-editor), Making Belfield. Space + Place at UCD (2020, UCD Press); as well as More Than Concrete Blocks, volumes 1 and 2 (2016/9, Four Courts Press) which are socio-cultural histories of Dublin’s buildings from 1900 to 1972. Volume 3 is currently under production. Before that she was co-editor of the landmark Yale series, Art and Architecture of Ireland (Volume 4, Architecture 1600 – 2000, YUP/RIA, 2014), Generally, this history is pioneering and so, she admits, there are mistakes. In 2017, Ellen was awarded Honorary Membership of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, for services to Irish architecture. Being privileged with an education from Trinity College Dublin and Cambridge University, UK, Ellen is an advocate for access to university education and specifically, the need for widening participation in architectural education. CREDITS: What Buildings Do is part of Story, Building the platform for the critical discussion of architecture in Ireland. Music is by Sinead Finnegan, design is by Eamonn Hall. The What Buildings Do logo is based on an enamel tile made by Livia Hurley. The podcast was recorded LIVE in March 2022.

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