On the 22nd July Niall will be giving a talk at the Galway International Arts Festival. Niall’s lecture will be based on The Ghost Chapel, a web–like structural negative of the existing St. MacDara’s Chapel constructed by the Bartlett’s Unit 17. Ghost Chapel will sit on Galway’s famous Claddagh Basin with the accompanying exhibition Taking Time on show within the Festival Hub at the Festival Gallery. The festival runs from the 16th – 29th July.
In the run up to the London Olympics, the Athletes’ Village housing block N15, is now occupied with athletes’ preparing for the games. Niall McLaughlin Architects have designed the external skin of the housing block on a ‘chassis’ designed by Glen Howells. The facade samples fragments of the Elgin Marbles, scanned from the British Museum and converted into 3D pre-cast panels depicting galloping horses from the Parthenon Frieze.
Niall McLaughlin commented on the practice’s approach to the unusual commission in Building Design. ‘I was very interested in the principle of the facade being delaminated from the building’s core form. Usually it’s something one tries to swim against to retain a sense of ‘authenticity’, but here we decided to embrace it….I like the idea of setting Ruskin’s conception of the craftsman against the absolute Taylorism of the construction process. Through digital reproduction, these deracinated stones are now doubly lost.’ (Building Design 27.01.2012)