50 ARCHITECTS, 50 BUILDINGS
SEPTEMBER 2016
‘Certain buildings have an extraordinary vividness, a sense of being more intense than others. That special presence is renewed every time I see the Berkeley Library’ – Niall
To mark the publication of the 20th Century Society’s publication of their new book, ’50 Architects, 50 Buildings’, Niall will be speaking at RIBA on 27th September about a building which has inspired him and made a lasting impact on his work: the Berkeley Library at Trinity College Dublin, by ABK.
Peter Barber, Sarah Featherstone, and Cany Ash will also speak about buildings that they regard as critically influential to their work.
‘ETERNAL PROBLEMS’, RIBA JOURNAL EXHIBITION REVIEW BY NIALL MCLAUGHLIN
JUNE 2014
Niall McLaughlin has written a piece for the RIBA Journal on the symbolic use of architecture within early Renaissance Art. The essay describes observations based on a visit to the ‘Building the Picture’ exhibition, currently on show at the National Gallery in London. The exhibition gathers together architectonic works by the Italian masters of the 14th-16th centuries that explore real and imagined architectural space.
The article observes how the Renaissance artists’ enthusiasms for displaying their newly discovered skills of perspective and knowledge of the classical forms are conflated with a religious symbolism. The tropes of classical architecture are used as visual metaphors for the divine and eternal. The article explores the effect of these spaces on the viewer and the reasons why the idealised architecture tends to alienate rather than engage.