TEDxDublin speaker line-up to include World Trade Center site rebuild architect

8 Aug 2012

The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, a museum that Daniel Libeskind extended, stands tall during the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007

TEDxDublin, which will be hosted by Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin on 8 September, has announced its initial speak line-up, which will include the architect Daniel Libeskind, who has designed world-renowned projects, including the Jewish Museum Berlin and is now designing the masterplan for Ground Zero in New York following 9/11.

Libeskind, who was born in Poland in 1946, now lives in New York. On Irish soil he has made his mark for having designed the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in the Grand Canal Dock area of Dublin City. The theatre opened in 2010.

Libeskind was a virtuoso musician at a young age, before giving up music to become an architect. Current projects he is working on include the Harmony Tower in Seoul, South Korea, and the Centre de Congrés á Mons in Belgium.

All for the full 15-speaker line-up at TEDxDublin, this has have yet to be confirmed, but Science Gallery said today other speakers will include the Cork-born artist Dorothy Cross, the immunologist Luke O’Neill and Dublin City Council architect Ali Grehan.

TEDxDublin itself will be running to coincide with the end of the Hack the City exhibition at Science Gallery.

As well as talks, the all-day event will also feature video and musical performances, according to the gallery. The theme on the day will be ‘City of Ideas’ to explore visionary architecture that shapes our cities and stories, told by the people who live in them.

Science Gallery has hosted TEDxDublin since 2009. It has featured speakers such as hacker Josh Klein, CoderDojo co-founder James Whelton and software designer Blaise Aguera y Arcas. One TEDxDublin talk by marine biologist Simon Berrow titled ‘How To Save a Shark You Know Nothing About’ went global after it was picked up on TED.com and received more than 225,000 views.

This year’s TEDxDublin will take place at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre at the Dublin Docklands.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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