Joseph Plunkett Tower

Saturday. Beautiful sunny morning. Ballymun. Joseph Plunkett Tower - the last one remaining...
Loaded with cameras and tripods we are going to the second floor of almost empty 15th storey structure.
I am with Jim, who brought me once again into Ballymun and got an access to the Tower. /you can have a look at my previous article related to this place to get a context...link is HERE/
We choose stairs and within no time we are in the front door of one of the three still inhabited flats. 
Doors opens...
Very bright and spacious two bedrooms, large living room with kitchen annex. Nowadays apartments usually not getting even close with size to this one built about 50 years ago. That's the fact.

Living room /fragment/

It's quite warm in there. Half century old underfloor heating still working perfectly. After a while I realized why most of the people who had to leave those flats were so dissapointed. They left behind beautiful memories but also comfortable and secure places. They were surrounded by good neighbours, people who cared, truly friendly and family-like neighbourhood which was mentioned many times by those who had to move away after decades ...

After short conversation with Lisa, owner of the flat, wonderful and very patient person, we took our equipment out of the bags and started to photograph it.
Soon this place will be gone as all original Ballymun flats...
While I was writing this text I got the message from Jim that actually only two families left out of three in Joseph Plunkett Tower...

The Tower consist of 90 flats and was named /as six other/ after the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation. It was build as the last one /1967/ and will be demolished as the last one.

Hall

On the way back we decided to stay a while within the building and record the maze of corridors and staircase on our negative films. Strong light of winter sun was illuminating everything so well... 
Surrounding emptiness and echo bouncing from concrete walls, ceiling and floor was the only strange feeling. It also emphasized mystery of that situation.

Corridor on the ground floor

  

Staircase

Just before we left, on the main gate we've met Bernie Rehill on her way back from shopping /photograph below/. Bernie, retired from Ballymun Library was mentioned third person living in the Tower. She is moving to the new place now.

...How much time left? Months? Weeks? 
Lisa will move probably soon. The same will happen with the last family we had no chance to meet.  I am convinced that these people will find themselves and happiness in new reality. The question is how long it takes...
All of it it's a part of history, disappearing part of history...is it good or bad? 
I am not the one to judge. The future will give the answer.


I would like to thank Lisa for showing us her place, Jim for all his help and companion and also Bernie for posing and great chat. Really appreciate that.


Equipment used:

Sinar F2 large format camera 4x5 with Schneider-Kreuznach Symmar-S 150mm 5.6 lens, Hasselblad 500cm with Distagon 50mm 4 and Planar 80mm 2.8 lenses. Film? Fomapan 100 4x5 exposed at ISO 64, couple of rolls of TMax 400 exposed at 3200 and 1600. 

...into the past

In the last months of 2009 I worked on the project "traces of human existence". When wandering through places that could serve as a good material for the project I visited a wonderful old victorian building - The Pigeon House Power Station. This place made a great impression on me. Its space, atmosphere, emptiness and silence encompassing it ...

In the first moment I didn’t know where to start as almost every corner was worth photographing. Even though only one of the pigeon house photographs made a place in the final draft, the remaining has created other interesting mini-series.