Bagenalstown Distillery
2023, Carlow, Ireland
Status
Awards
We welcome the opportunity to consider this special project-to create a brand home for a first class whiskey distillery in the historic Minch and Norton Company Maltings. The character of the home place -the fact that there is a home place-is even more important in this digital age. The ambition is to reconcile the global with the local, a worldwide brand with a terroir, an area whose precise conditions of water or soil are the basis of its fame. The design task is also about combining industry and tourism, about making what is in fact a factory into a place of tours, tastings, dining experiences. Dunleckney Maltings is a historic place of cultural significance. The setting on the river Barrow is of course romantic and the connection with the rich town tradition of Bagenalstown is valuable. It must be remembered that fundamentally the buildings were useful and in their time extremely functional-the bucolic riverside setting came about because of the power of water to generate energy and the proximity of the Barrow and its navigation canal provided transport for the produce. Now we must reimagine the building complex for the next chapter of its history-a modern distillery and international destination.
These buildings will have been much modified over time. Regardless of the heritage status of the buildings, our policy would always be to understand the original form and materiality of the building, removing extraneous or unsympathetic additions and to do as much as required, as little as possible. Successful adaptation and re-use of these historic structures demands that the meaning and qualities of the existing must be identified and respected within a meaningful dialogue between new and old.