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From the minute scale to the monumental, this film documents building developments in Sandyford, Dublin. Successful elements of new, high density living are shown next to the carcasses of unfinished apartment buildings, offering a glimpse of the dreams and failures of planning, economics and politics during Ireland’s Celtic Tiger years. Similar conditions are evident on the edge of many towns and cities throughout Ireland. This film explores a reading of periphery that is related to use, entropy and decay. Some of these developments were in ruins before they were even completed; like all monumental endeavours symbolic of both the vision and hubris of man.

The voiceover is taken from the American documentary The City (1939), a film sponsored by the American Institute of City Planners and adapted by Lewis Mumford from a story by film-maker Pare Lorentz, produced to sell a suburban dream to the people, and shown at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.