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13-11-02 news EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS
U2 moving their Studio to Britain...

U2 frontman Bono launched a competition yesterday to design a tower that will overlook Dublin's Docklands and house the legendary band's new studios.

The Irish rockers are preparing to move to a new recording studio at the top two floors of the proposed 60m tower at the estuary of the River Liffey.

Bono at new Studio Site

The new Britain Quay site is around the corner from U2's present studio, which they were unable to save at a planning hearing in January.

Speaking at the competition launch in Dublin Bono said the group would miss its Hanover Quay studio, which the band has used since 1980.

Bono at new Studio Site

"It's very hard to quantify or value what that studio that we have been working in for the last years means to us," he said. "There isn't really a price you can put on it and whatever the Dublin Docklands Authority offer us it's not going to be enough, I can tell you that."

He said the studio, on the Grand Canal Dock, was an extraordinary place to work and was featured on art work of one of the Dublin band's album covers.

"One of the things I'm going to personally miss is where we are right now, we're right on the water and the Grand Canal Dock is very still. And I can tell you, things get very rough when U2 make a record, there's a lot of passion and a lot of disputes. And just the energy of making a record is such that we really appreciate the stillness of the Grand Canal Dock. I don't really want to be at the top of the building and stuck inside."

U2 originally objected to plans for the development of the docklands. The bid to save its current studio was however lost when the Irish planning board upheld its original plans at a hearing, and their compulsory purchase order was confirmed.

Bono said that although the new building was not the best thing for U2 it was the best thing for Dublin itself. "The new Dublin's something I'm very excited about," he said.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) is now seeking designs from architects worldwide and said the new tower could be completed within around three years.

Peter Coyne of the DDDA said the tower would be located on a magnificent corner of the river. "We're hugely excited that U2 are staying in the area," he said. "They're very closely associated with the area and they add value in the broadest sense to the whole area, and they're part of the energy that if it wasn't already there we would be trying to invent."

U2 will nominate a band member to sit on the jury examining architects' proposals for the tower.

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