Making Assembly, a film by Michelle Delea

“To assemble is to gather together as a group of people with a common interest. To assemble is to construct a whole from constituent parts. As both congregation and construction, assembly is at the heart of the architectural process; it is a multi-sensory installation, a soundscape to be inhabited, a space to be heard.” — Cotter & Naessens Architects Following its presentation at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2025, Assembly, Ireland’s national pavilion by Cotter & Naessens Architects, has embarked on a national tour across the country this summer. Part installation, part resonant chamber, part civic proposition, Assembly is a multisensory environment that explores architecture as a space for gathering, listening, and collective reflection. Inspired by Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly, established in 2016 to bring together demographically representative residents to deliberate urgent social and political issues ranging from marriage equality to biodiversity loss, the project reflects on new forms of participatory democracy and asks how architecture might support more open, inclusive, and non-hierarchical forms of public exchange. At a moment when civic discourse is increasingly fragmented and mediated through digital space, Assembly proposes the act of coming together, physically and collectively, as both a political and poetic gesture. The national tour extends this proposition beyond Venice, bringing the pavilion into dialogue with audiences across Ireland and inviting new communities to inhabit, activate, and contribute to the work. The Ireland tour presents the original installation alongside the premiere of a new 27-minute documentary “Making Assembly” directed and produced by Michelle Delea. Structured around the four stanzas of the poem ‘Assembly’, the film traces the design, fabrication, and installation of the pavilion through moving image and sound, documenting the collaborative processes and material labour that shaped the work. The tour continues at Architecture at the Edge at the Mick Lally Theatre, Galway, on September 26, 2026 with a screening of “Making Assembly”. Presented in dialogue with the festival’s theme, Le Chéile, a film screening of “Making Assembly” extends the festival’s exploration of citizens’ assemblies and asks how architecture might foster more open forms of communication, participation, and democratic engagement. The screening will be followed by an audience discussion with Louise Cotter (Architect) & Michelle Delea (Architect, poet, and filmmaker), moderated by AATE Festival Director Frank Monahan.