Trinity’s Public Theatre, commonly known as the Exam Hall, will remain closed until early August as the €400,000 replacement and restoration of the organ gets under way, and a €200,000 redecoration of the building is completed.
For this five-week closure, the portraits that usually hang in the hall, including those of Queen Elizabeth I and Trinity graduate Bishop George Berkeley, have been removed to be cleaned.
According to Trinity’s Head of Estates and Facilities, Brendan Leahy, the most “significant” part of the project is the replacement of the organ, and the restoration of the original organ case. Speaking to The University Times , Leahy said that it was the “major work” on the organ that created the opportunity to redecorate the building’s interior. The last time such redecoration took place, according to Leahy, was the late 1980s.
Speaking to The University Times , the architect behind the project, John O’Connell, described the redecoration as “pretty ambitious”. Within a period of five weeks, the “largest neoclassical room within College and indeed within the city of Dublin” will be repainted, by hand, from the current grey-green colour scheme to one with more reds and pinks to match the “traditional specification”.
After analysis on the original paintwork, the redecoration will lead to a “warm sandstone” colour for the main walls and a “pompeian red” for the decoration of the frieze, according to O’Connell.
The work will mean the addition of a new organ to the hall, and the restoration of the original case. The organ is currently in a “very bad state” according to David Grayson, the Emeritus Professor in the School of Chemistry who is leading the project, and the interior pipes have no “tonal, musical or historical value” and will be salvaged. Speaking to The University Times , he said that the “facade pipes”, which are visible at the front of the organ, will be restored and incorporated into the new organ.
Such a project is “not a cheap job”, and is being funded from a range of sources. Some of the cost has been covered by a large private donation, as well as support from the Trinity College Association and Trust, which is made up of Trinity graduates and provides grant support for College projects. The project has also received a loan from the College, which according to Grayson “is going to be reimbursed to the College over a number of years by top-slicing a very small amount of money from the commencements fee”.
The original case which, according to Grayson, dates from 1684, is older than the Exam Hall it is housed in. It was built by Lancelot Pease, and “one of only two Pease 17th century organ cases that survive only in whole or part”, he says. Pease was an important figure in organ-building in the 17th century, who completed projects in both St Patrick’s and Canterbury Cathedral.
Over the next 12 months, the organ case will first be taken to the UK to be examined by decoration specialists, before restoration is completed and it is reinstalled in the Exam Hall gallery. The plan is for the new organ to be installed in the summer of 2017, to be available for commencements towards the end of the year, which see degrees conferred on Trinity graduates.
The hall is also often used as a space to host prestigious and famous guests. Only last week the Vice-President of the US, Joe Biden, received an honorary doctorate in a ceremony within the hall, while last November the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, received the University Philosophical Society’s honorary patronage there.
