Niall McLaughlin Architects have been shortlisted for the main European architecture award, the Mies Van der Rohe Prize. Only three UK projects have received this recognition in the past five years. The Bishop Edward King Chapel is the shortlisted project. It will form part of a travelling exhibition of schemes in different European cities. The winner will be announced in summer 2015.
Niall McLaughlin has given a keynote lecture on the theme of ‘Sacred Spaces’ as part of a conference on Modern Sacred Architecture in Ireland and Germany, hosted at Newman House in Dublin. The conference was hosted as a collaboration between University College Dublin, Goethe-Institut Ireland and the National College of Art and Design. The other key note lecturers were Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Professor of Art History at UCD and Amandus Sattler, principal of the award-wining Munich practice, Allmann Sattler Wappner.
The three day event explored themes of abstraction and innovation, together with conservation and re-use in the design of churches, mosques and synagogues from 1920s to the present day. The lectures and panel discussions focussed on sacred architecture of the period within Ireland and Germany. Niall spoke on themes surrounding the practice’s ecclesiastical work, including the Bishop Edward King Chapel and the Carmelite chapels in London and Dublin.