You can put this video on your website by simply copying and placing the following embed code on your page:
Old Museum Arts Centre
The Old Museum Arts Centre, or OMAC, is reputedly one of Ireland’s leading visual and performing arts centres. Of course, this noble looking building built between 1830-1831 by Thomas Duff and Thomas Jackson claims to be the home of Ireland’s first ever museum.
It presents quite an unusual architectural style compared to the surrounding streets. No wonder then its Grade 1 status reflects a certain importance and rightly so because this area during the early 1800s in Belfast would have been considered suitable for wealthy merchants. Early inhabitants here included a wealthy baker, philanthropist Barney Hughes and Sir William Whitla.
Duff and Jackson joined forces to create what was in those days a new style. Although it quickly became accepted European wide and in the US, it was Englishman James Stuart who later gave rise to this new architectural phenomenon called Greek Revival that was inevitably inspired by the architecture of Classical Greece. Hence the exaggerated entrance with capitals atop grand pillars that would not look out of place on any ancient public buildings in Greece.
In 1821 the Belfast Natural History Society was established and began exhibiting here in 1833. They also added and art gallery in 1890 possibly on the ground floor adjacent to where the cafe is now. The museum moved to new premises in Royal Avenue in 1909.
OMAC was established in 1990 and since then has a well deserved reputation as one of the North's best venues, offering a varied, innovative, entertaining and high quality programme throughout the year.
On the first floor is this Theatre Room which has gained the reputation for presenting contemporary theatre and dance highly acclaimed in the world of entertainment. Considering OMAC work with many youth groups and organisations these rooms are often busy with thespians practising before their eventual stage call.
On the second floor though, is the most interesting room in the building. Aptly named the Red Room, this was where the Natural History Society - the earliest predecessor to the Ulster Museum – first displayed their most ambitious exhibit at the time called The Mummy, which was presented by Thomas Greg of Ballymenoch on the 27th January 1835.
The balcony and especially antique stairs again provide a striking image of how Duff and Jackson were honing their architectural skills for bigger projects such as St Patrick’s Pro Cathedral in Dundalk a few years later. The design of the room also has that library feel about it and may have in the early days of the museum been used in a similar fashion such as for archives of exhibits.
The stairs finally lead to the roof and although strictly off limits to the public this presents another peculiar characteristic to the building since it doesn’t seem to serve any other useful purpose. The XX century College building opposite blocks the view of the lawns of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, which for the wealthy merchants in the 1800s was why they settled here in the first place.
References
http:// www.oldmuseumartscentre.org
Categories: Architectural | Art | Business | Castles | Educational | Historical | Leisure | Monuments | Museums | Political | Religious |
RSS