U2 visitor centre ‘will be the pride of the capital’
THE new U2 visitor centre ‘will make the Dublin Docklands and Grand Canal Dock a destination experience for the millions of U2 fans around the world’.
That is the boast contained in planning documents lodged with Dublin City Council that give a sneak preview of what the band is planning for the Hanover Quay site of the U2 recording studios.
The four-storey building – with a total floor area of 2,864 sq metres – will feature a reconstruction of the band’s original studio and various themed exhibit areas that include a series of abstract scenes such as ‘the Music Room’ and ‘Larry’s Kitchen’.
The application by Golden Brook Ltd and MHEC Ltd also includes a café, auditorium, reception and area for selling merchandising.
According to Manahan Town Planners, the centre ‘will contain exhibit spaces, which will house memorabilia from U2’s vast musical history, including old guitars, performance outfits and paraphernalia from their past’.
Manahan Town Planners also state the existing building on site is now little used but has become a place of pilgrimage for U2 fans worldwide, some of whom leave messages in graffiti form on the building.
It is proposed the buildings on site will be demolished, and that ‘a world-class tourist attraction’ will be created, with a ‘permanent, yet constantly evolving, exhibition of the U2 story on the site where they recorded six albums’.
The planning document states that visitors will be able to explore the U2 story ‘through hi-tech, immersive and experiential scene-setting installations as well as through multi-layered thematic displays’.
The submission says ‘the voice of the band will be a constant throughout’, and that ‘the goal is to create a sense of the social, cultural and political context of the band’s work and inspiration’.
Twenty-six people are to be employed at the centre.