Architecture's golden couple shaping spaces across the world

Their paths first crossed at a UCD disco. They've gone on to win architecture’s top prizes. Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey of O’Donnell + Tuomey talk to Home editor Eve Kelliher

Fri, 31 Dec, 2021 - 12:17

Eve Kelliher

Enrolling as an architecture student immediately changed the way a teenage Sheila O’Donnell viewed the world.

She didn’t know it right then, but it was also about shape her life’s course — as well as that of one of her classmates.

Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey. Picture: Al Higgins

“I turned up at the School of Architecture [at University College Dublin] in 1971 and I thought it was wonderful.

“I couldn’t believe something like this existed.

“I remember looking at the world out of the bus in a different way — my visual senses were firing,” she says.

For Sheila, from Dublin, her career path and her life path were to merge — as were those of fellow first-year architecture student John Tuomey.

They met on the stairs at a UCD disco on the Belfield campus soon after and struck up a friendship.

“We didn’t become a couple until we were literally going out the door in our final year,” laughs Sheila. The husband-and-wife team established the practice O’Donnell + Tuomey (www.odonnell-tuomey.ie).

“It’s relatively common in architecture, quite a lot of architects are couples,” says Sheila.

“I think it’s because it is such time-consuming work — as students we would be there until 10 at night.”

As a creative partnership, they started to garner awards at home and across the globe.

Glucksman Gallery, UCC. Picture: Alice Clancy

The duo finished 2021 on a particularly high note, having been presented with the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland’s prestigious Gold Award for the Lyric Theatre in Belfast.

It’s the highest honour in Irish architecture and has been presented by the RIAI since 1934 for a design of exceptional merit by an RIAI architect, in Ireland or internationally.

This is an award for a building that has stood the test of time.

“We’re delighted — it’s a particularly nice award. This is a building that’s finished and in use in the case of the Lyric, for 10 years now. As a theatre, it’s a cultural building, but also, unexpectedly, it’s a building that’s part of daily life, people pop in there for a coffee in the morning. The challenge is to make those spaces interesting,” says Sheila.

Because for Sheila and John, who both went on to lecture at third level including their alma mater, they believe architecture is about “shaping spaces”.

A conversation with the couple shows how their practice of what John describes as “drawing on each other’s drawings” makes perfect sense.

St Angela's College, Cork. Picture: Alice Clancy

They don’t so much as finish each other’s sentences as continue a thought or an idea.

“Both our fathers were engineers [Sheila’s a chemical engineer and John’s a civil engineer] — so maybe that’s what we had in common from the start,” John muses.

Tralee-born John moved with his family to live for two years each in Macroom, Drumshanbo, Cobh, and Cooley, then to Dundalk where he attended secondary school, before relocating to Dublin as a student.

“I grew up on my dad’s building sites, so my family moved about, my father worked on the construction of Haulbowline.

“My first haircut was at Frank’s Barbers in Cork; that’s where I lost my curls!”

They have two sons — both National College of Art and Design graduates — and one grandchild.

Sheila and John have been living in Rathmines, Dublin, for 30 years now.

“Sheila has a studio at the bottom of the house and I at the top,” says John. And the concept of the theatre as a “house” was the foundation stone of their award-winning design, almost 20 years ago, for the Lyric building.

When Sheila accidentally stepped into a tray of paint backstage she inadvertently flung some colour on the blank canvas.

The Lyric Theatre, interior. Picture: Dennis Gilbert

The Lyric was in a temporary building built in the 1960s. “I stood into a paint tray full of black paint and I was wearing beige trousers,” says Sheila. Staff immediately sprang into action. “It also got us backstage. We saw the amazing clothes, the wardrobe lady brought me a pair of trousers and a lady came from the laundry to wash my own trousers for me. I talked to her and realised her role.

“It meant that we were engaging with everyone that was part of the theatre. There’s a play going on, but there’s a stain on John’s costume, there are repairs needed, ironing, I realised all the work going on. It’s so much more than just the actors and the director. So our motto for our competition entry was ‘House for Lyric’ — because it was like a home.”

This inspired the duo to design the integrated “house”.

John adds: “The technical term is ‘back of house’ and ‘front of house’.” The whole theatre is one house.” The Lyric is set on a sloping triangular site between Belfast’s River Lagan and the city’s brick backstreets.

Sunday's Well houses, Cork. Picture: Dennis Gilbert

The couple have designed houses in Cork’s Sunday’s Well as well as the award-winning Student Hub and Glucksman Gallery at University College Cork and St Angela’s College on Patrick’s Hill. “And now we’re working directly across the road on Christian Brothers College,” adds Sheila.

John says: “St Angela’s — now there’s a sloping site.”

St Angela's College, Cork. Picture: Dennis Gilbert

“The Glucksman Gallery would not exist without the slope. When I think of Cork I think of all these ups and downs.”

O’Donnell + Tuomey, which has offices in Dublin, Cork and London, has won more than 120 awards. Its completed schemes include The Glucksman Gallery, Cork, the Irish Film Institute and National Photography Centre, the regeneration of Dublin’s Temple Bar (with Group 91), Irish Language Cultural Centre, Derry, Lyric Theatre, Belfast, Photographers’ Gallery and LSE Student Centre in London. O’Donnell+Tuomey has exhibited six times at the Venice Architecture Biennale