Níall McLaughlin
Architects

‘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.

UNIT 17 EXHIBITION, BARTLETT SUMMER SHOW 2013

JUNE 2013

With direction from tutors Niall McLaughlin, Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Michiko Sumi, this year’s Unit 17 Masters students have designed and fabricated a thirteen-seat table as the focal point of their exhibition space.

The table is intended to become a platform around which architects, artists and academics can debate the ideas and questions raised by the students’ work in relation to the wider context.

The exhibition opened on Friday 21st and has since held the first of four lively debates. The next will take place on Wednesday 26th at 12:30pm.

Unit 17 exhibition space, The Slade Galleries, UCL, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT

Link to Unit 17