THE ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION AUSTRALIA
FEBRUARY 2017
On the 9th February Niall will be attending the 3 day Architecture Foundation Ozetecture Diversity and Community Conference in Melbourne to deliver a key note speech. Drawing speakers from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America and Australia, the theme Diversity + Community is a unique opportunity for architects to explore some of the less-charted terrains of architectural practice and to consider the role of architecture as a positive force in uncertain times.
‘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.