Níall McLaughlin
Architects

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PROGRESS

MARCH 2017

Below are some from the Natural History Museum site showing the scaffold ‘tunnel’ going up at the Museum. This is the framework required to lift, manipulate, and move the blue whale skull into position in a few weeks.

Though the main hall has had a sperm whale in it before, this was only around 15m long. In contrast, the blue whale, the largest known animal to have ever existed, is about 30m long once assembled.

Unfortunately, due to the various extensions and alterations to the Museum over time, the skull can only come in via the front doors. And – much like a very large, very heavy, very valuable sofa – it’s a case of squeezing it in at strange angles.

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.