< Back to News

‘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.

COLLABORATION WITH KIM WILKIE MAKES NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM SHORTLIST

NOVEMBER 2013

Collaboration with Kim Wilkie makes Natural History Museum Shortlist

Niall McLaughlin Architects and Kim Wilkie have been shortlisted in a competition to re-imagine the grounds of the Natural History Museum in London. The practice was approached by the landscape designer Kim Wilkie to collaborate on a scheme for the invited competition. The brief is to create an innovative exterior setting that matches the architectural excellence of Waterhouse’s iconic 19th century building.

The five other architect and landscape architect teams shortlisted for the competition are Bjarke Ingels Group with Martha Schwartz Partners, Grant Associates with Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Land Use Consultants with Design Engine and Stanton Williams Architects with Bradley-Hole Schoenaich Landscape Architects.