Belvedere team arrives at Casino Marino

School: Belvedere College, Architect: Jacinta Curley

On the 12 of January me and my art class went on a school trip to the Marino Casino in Marino. My class is currently doing a project on architecture and we decided to focus our research on the casino as there is a fascinating and beautiful amount of design in the building. The features on and in the casino are extraordinary and mind boggling. The casino was built in the 17 century by Sir William Chambers and is a small and perfect example of Neo classical architecture. It takes the form of a Greek cross. At first the glance the casino looks like a small one roomed house however on the inside there are three floors and 16 rooms. This is part of the optical and architectural illusions that were deliberately designed. There is also a series of tunnels underneath the casino however these are not open to the public.

The features on the outside of the casino are beautiful. One of the features that stood out to us in particular was the stone ox skulls that were patterned around the building. These stones represent sacrifices to the pagan gods. The building is referred to as a pagan building. There are also a number of statues which are positioned on different places on the casino. These include stone lions which are positioned on the four corners of the casino, stone urns which are positioned on the roof of the building and represent the chimneys and stone statues of Greek gods positioned on different sides of the casino.

The casino is built so that if it were cut down the middle it would be perfectly symmetrical on both sides. We entered the building through the basement and worked our way up the casino. In the basement we saw the kitchen and a number of different rooms. On the ground floor you would enter though the oak door which seems huge at first glance but as you look closer you see that only a section of the door opens. This is part of the optical illusion. You would then enter into portico. We saw the beautiful plaster work around the walls while we were in the portico. On the plaster work we saw musical instruments. We then entered into the blue room which is decorated with blue silk which lines the walls. We could see on the ceiling of the roof there was an image of the Greek god Apollo plastered into the ceiling. We also went into the two hidden room in the blue room, one of which was called the China room as it stored all the tea and spices from China.

The floor on the ground floor was decorated beautifully with five different types of wood. This is known as a parquet floor. We then went up another floor to where the bedroom was. We saw were the bed would have been positioned and we saw the same beautifully decorated floors that we had seen on the ground floor. We also saw the beautiful plaster work. At the end of our visit to the casino we were all intrigued by the illusions and beautiful design and architecture that we saw on our visit to the casino. We are very excited to study such an intriguing structure as the casino.