Architecture and Poetry

May 2023

The exhibition Architecture and Poetry is on display at Hay Castle from May 26th - 3rd September. The exhibition begins on the Castle exterior with a newly commissioned light poem from poet-sculptor Robert Montgomery and culminates in Pelé Cox’s verse inscription for Eric Parry’s Building 7 at Chelsea Barracks as well as the words of bilingual poet Gwyneth Lewis for the Wales Millennium Centre at Cardiff. Alongside this, the exhibition details three architectural designs by our practice which were inspired by poems, including the International Rugby Experience at Limerick which has its origins in the poem Beowulf. These architectural exhibits are complemented by a collection of concrete poetry from the 1960s to the present including The Mouse’s Tale by Lewis Carrol. To visit the Hay Castle website click here.

Níall will be giving a lecture at Hay Castle on the 30th May talking about the links between poems and some of our projects. Please click here to find out further details.

RIBA Forum Poetry and Architecture

May 2015

On the 26^th of May Niall joined architect Will Alsop, and poets Katharine Kilalea and Matthew Gregory at the RIBA for a discussion on whether poetry and architecture can together reveal something new about our contemporary experience of space. How do the two art forms inform each other, and what can poetry and architecture and their intersection tell us about modern habits and habitation? The event was curated by Catherine Hamilton from the arts association Store. Niall’s piece ‘My Portfolio in Poems’ looked at particular poems that directly influenced his projects.