John Tuomey on the importance of materials in architecture, designing London's V&A East, and his new book, Middle Quarter.

Dublin-based architect John Tuomey first appeared on Material Matters in 2024 to talk about his brilliant memoir, First Quarter. Now he’s written the follow-up, unsurprisingly entitled, Middle Quarter. John is the co-founder of O’Donnell + Tuomey. He was the inaugural professor of Architectural Design at University College Dublin and visiting professor at Princeton, Harvard and Yale. Over the years, he has won numerous awards, including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, and his practice is responsible for buildings such as V&A East, the Lyric Theatre Belfast, and the Glucksman Gallery in Cork. In this episode, he talks about: this year’s opening of V&A East; material as ‘tangible reality’ in architecture; why he wrote his new book (and why it isn’t a biography); being interested in mortality and melancholy; architecture and ‘endurance’; his relationship with his mother (and her friendship with actor Richard Harris); the purpose of poetry and the purpose of architecture; creating buildings with lasting value; being ‘lucky’ and working the way he wants; failure; the importance of music in his life; architecture as an ‘occasional art’; his inner drive; being drawn to the scared; oh... and telling Michael Graves to ‘fuck off’. You can buy the beautiful Middle Quarter here: https://shop.materialmatters.design/products/middle-quarterSupport the show