Ballsbridge: €1.75m
A house designed by Robin Walker - of Scott Tallon Walker - reflects the architect's tuition under Mies van der Rohe, writes Eoin Lyons

One of Dublin's most important Modernist houses will be auctioned by Lisney on April 11th with an AMV of €1.75 million. The house at 1 St Mary's Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, was designed by the late Robin Walker for his family and built in 1964. It extends to 150sq m (1,600sq ft), has four bedrooms and is built around several internal courtyards. Walker's children, including Corbin and Sarah, both artists, and architect Simon, are now selling the house.

At the time the house was built Robin Walker had become a partner in Michael Scott and Partners, had married Dorothy Cole and had two infant sons. Dorothy Walker, an art historian and critic, died in 2002 having made a major contribution to the visual arts in Ireland, particularly with regard to the development of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Robin Walker's career started in Scott's office after he left UCD in 1946. He worked on the Busáras building and won a bursary to complete a masters degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology which was iconic architect Mies van der Rohe's base in America. There he studied under Mies and others associated with the Bauhaus era in pre-war Germany. This fundamentally defined his subsequent attitude to architecture and the design of this Dublin home.

On his return to Ireland, Walker became, along with Ronald Tallon, who had followed a similar path, a senior architect in Scott's, and by the early 1960s had worked on the Abbey Theatre, the Cork Opera House, and the RTÉ studios. Other buildings designed by Walker include the Bord Fáilte headquarters on Baggot Street Bridge, Wesley College, St Columba's College science block, the Restaurant Building at UCD, Belfield, and the Arts Building at Maynooth College. His career was ended prematurely by illness in the late 1970s, after which he took up writing and teaching, and became an inspector for An Bord Pleanála.

Walker only built four private houses, of which two were for his family: one in Dublin and one in Co Cork.

The site for the house at St Mary's Lane was found by seeking corner sites with the right orientation. Walker found eight such sites within walking distance of his office and wrote to the owners. Only one replied. Walker acquired the vegetable garden and orchard behind the property that was, as a corner house, a double-fronted site. So the house is bounded on three sides by high granite garden walls. On the fourth side, a concrete block wall divides the site from the main garden, and runs through one end of the livingroom.

Within this enclosure, a flat concrete roof slab covers the site, leaving three "holes" or courtyards. The largest is at the south-west corner, the next largest at the south-east corner, and the smallest is the entrance court along the lane side of the house. The building presents a closed exterior but inside all of the courtyard walls have full-height glazing, as they are completely secluded from the street.

The accommodation is designed for a family with small children - three children's bedrooms, a bathroom, plus a main bedroom with en-suite and dressing area. The living and dining areas are open-plan, with a kitchen and the entrance hall. A small "core" conceals the boiler, services and storage in a plywood box, around which these rooms flow. There is a garage at the end of the site.

All of the rooms enjoy views from a courtyard and most have views from one courtyard to another.

At the main south-west facing courtyard a pair of glazed sliding doors disappears completely into a recess, thus opening the main room up completely to the garden. The floor is level with the courtyard paving so that the connection between inside and outside is smooth.

It is detailing such as this that transforms the house into a masterful work of architecture. In keeping with the principles of Mies van der Rohe, no architraves or mouldings are used (except the skirting), the concrete ceiling shows pour marks and the cork tile floor echoes the grid of the concrete flags that cover the courtyard. Four concrete columns provide the only internal structural supports - the roof otherwise bears on the perimeter walls.

Walker's work is generally distinguished by its use of concrete and the house aspires to humility.

No value is placed on expensive finishes or complex construction. Instead it relies on elegant proportions and the result is a highly original re-working of Miesian architecture in an Irish context.