Michelle Delea‘s film The Sprawling Octopus of an Elevated Highway (2022) documents the actions of journalist Mary Leland and the City Seventy Planning Group (born of Cork’s first class of architects), who rose up against the BKS Traffic Plan to protect and preserve the character of our city.

In this documentary, the architects recall their college years in the Crawford School of Art, which led to youthful activism, prolific careers, and an enduring desire to see the city flourish.

The City Seventy Planning Groups’s vision of pedestrianisation, public transport networks and a liveable city filled with parks and public spaces has deep resonance today at a time when the population of County Cork is projected to expand by 2050 to 850,000, with a Metropolitan Area of over 500,000 – double the current population of Cork City**.

Michelle Delea’s film creates a space to prompt an urgent and necessary cross-generational conversation and questioning of our city’s past, present and future.

Michelle Delea currently works between architectural practice and education, alongside film and poetry. Delea has a particular focus on public engagement in her work.

She is currently assisting research and development of the new European MSc programme Redesigning the Post-Industrial City (UCC and UNIC alliance) and is a member of the Irish Architecture Foundation Graduate Panel.

Contributors
Mary Leland, Gerard O’Callaghan, Harry Wallace, Gerald McCarthy, John Santry, Des Heffernan, John Heffernan, Neil Hegarty and Dr. Michael Waldron.

Co-Producers
Patrick Creedon, Dr. Sarah Mulrooney

* named after the consultants who devised the plan

** sources: 2022 National Census (published May 2023) and Cork 2050 Realising the Full Potential – Cork’s Submission to the National Planning Framework (published March 2017).