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.

Rowan Moore Writes about Bishop Edward King Chapel in the Observer

April 2013

Architecture critic Rowan Moore has written a review of the Bishop Edward King Chapel with the title “The Answers to their Prayers” that was published in the Observer Magazine. The article touches on the broader themes of the interpretation and appropriation of religious symbolism in architecture, and in this context praises the paradoxical nature of the chapel; “It is…heavy and light, a bastion and a boat, a wall and a drape. It has presence, but doesn’t dominate.” Describing the form and materiality of the building Moore writes, “The building is crafted and considered: it makes ideas physical: it has intentions and carries them out in its space and matter.”

Link to the article