Niall McLaughlin Appointed Professor of Architectural Practice

NIALL MCLAUGHLIN APPOINTED PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

OCTOBER 2015

Niall has been appointed Professor of Architectural Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Niall has been teaching at the Bartlett for 25 years and alongside his new role will continue to teach on the MArch Architecture Unit 17 with Michiko Sumi and Yeoryia Manolopoulou, as well as continuing to develop his design research folio in building design, material behaviours, building use, cultural meaning and user experience.

Professor Bob Sheil, Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture said ‘Níall takes up this new role as one of our most admired and influential design tutors. Throughout his time at the school his profile as a skilled and significant practitioner has grown to international status and throughout this period we have witnessed his considerable investment in architectural research both through UCL and 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.