This building wants to fall down
Design in Ireland 1961, Scandanavian Design Group, survey and report.
This report was commissioned by the Irish government of the time via the export board, to try and bring Irish design up to international standards, thereby creating an export trade of Irish design products.
The survey and report was carried out for free by the influential SDG, and the recommendations were to improve industrial design education, architectural design education, and fine art education, while keeping the important and sophisticated traditional Irish crafts alive.
One way (the SDG suggested) of creating a strong export trade in Irish design was to create a strong domestic trade.
The SDG suggested that to create a strong domestic trade that the local economy would have to be educated in 'good' design. This education, they suggested, should happen via the shop store window, i.e. that the shop store window would become a site of design education for the Irish people.
The report was largely ignored by the Irish government of the time.
This moment of potential in Irish design history led me to think of two alternative future moments, in an Ireland where this report had been implemented:
THIS BUILDING WANTS TO FALL DOWN, version 1