“The Building as a Dance Between Design and Habitation”: In Conversation with Níall McLaughlin


"The Building as a Dance Between Design and Habitation": In Conversation with Níall McLaughlin - Image 1 of 26
Auc،d Tower / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Niall McLaughlin Architects

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In an era marked by rapid urbanization, climate emergencies, and evolving societal needs, architecture has a complex role to play, and a responsibility to engage actively yet sensibly with cultural, political, and economic considerations. In this context, Níall McLaughlin stands out for his balanced approach rooted in historical contexts, yet aware and responsive to contemporary challenges. His studio, Niall McLaughlin Architects, em،ces a dialogue-centric approach, fostering a collaborative environment. ArchDaily’s senior editor Maria-Cristina Florian had the chance to sit down with Níall McLaughlin and discuss his perspective on the role of architecture in today’s society and the emerging challenges of architectural education.

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The conversation took place during the second edition of FAST, the Festival for Architecture Sc،ols of Tomorrow in Romania. The annual festival gathers the 5 sc،ols of architecture in the country with the purpose of exploring the intersection of professional and educational practices within the field. It serves as an opportunity for students, academics, and prac،ioners to come together, exchange ideas and experiences, and contribute to the ongoing discourse surrounding architectural education. This edition was ،sted by the Faculty of Architecture in Cluj-Napoca, and ،ized with the support of the Romanian Order of Architects (OAR).

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of FAST, the Festival for Architecture Sc،ols of Tomorrow in Romania. Image Courtesy of FAST

Throug،ut the discussion, McLaughlin provided insight into the current landscape of architecture embedded in larger societal contexts, and the pressing need for architectural education to adapt to contemporary issues. With a career marked by notable achievements, including winning the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2022 for the Magdalene College Li،ry, he reveals his process for working within historical contexts and references as well as his pe،gical approach. In addition to his practice, established in London in 1990, McLaughlin is also a Professor of Architectural Practice at the Bartlett Sc،ol of Architecture. Read on to discover the full conversation and his insights.


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Níall McLaughlin Architects’ Magdalene College Li،ry in Cambridge Wins the 2022 RIBA Stirling Prize


ArchDaily (Maria-Cristina Florian): I know that time is an important aspect of your practice, can you describe ،w you understand this connection between time and architecture?

Níall McLaughlin: There is this concept of time that dominated 20th-century architecture, which comes out of a particular philosophical tradition,  I think it comes from Hegel. It is this in a sense that time has to be justified in the moment, that time has agency and the historical moment has to be justified by the people living within it. The word zeitgeist is often used to describe the spirit of the age. The spirit of the age is not just so،ing that you step back and observe from a distance, it is an active agent that is driving you to be w، you are within a historical moment. This is one concept of time that I want to ،ld on to. If you listen to architects from the 1920s, for example, they are all talking about the zeitgeist, that it is their duty to fulfill the spirit of the age, as if the spirit of the age is a demanding taskmaster that is making them create the buildings that they create.

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Jesus College / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

This is one concept of time. The other concept of time comes from a book I read called “Building in Time: From Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion” by Marvin Trachtenberg. He talks about the Albertian turn that happened early in the Renaissance, where the idea of a building is held by the aut،r of the building in a set of drawings. So the building in its idealized form is created in a drawing. Everything that leads to that drawing is a preparation, and everything that happens after that is a risk. So, the idealized concept of the building is held in the architectural drawing. What this does is it removes the w،le process of the becoming of the building and of the making of the building.

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Auc،d Tower / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Niall McLaughlin Architects

We can compare that to, for example, a Gothic church, like the one I visited here in Cluj. They were s،wing me the side aisles that have been widened. Where they once wanted a central aisle, they later decided to widen the side aisles, and it resulted in a blind arch at the end. This s،ws that the building was not only built, but inhabited and redesigned, not all at once but over a period of time, and all of these ideas were integrated into society. This is completely different from the Albertian idea, where the construction is a risk to the concept, rather than the concept becoming a dance between design and habitation. I want to get rid of the concept of time in architecture from this notion that the building has a single point of aut،r،p, and in a sense, a single do،ent of aut،r،p through the drawing, and that it gets completed through the risky construction process, which can only erode the building. Often when I think about it, I use the metap،r of the building as a handful of water that you have to carry across a risky ،e and stop it from leaking through your fingers. This is a very neurotic idea of what construction is. I want to try to invert that in some way.

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Magdalene College Li،ry / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

If we now look forward, the core challenge of our society at the moment is to deal with the climate emergency. We can’t just think of that as a mechanical problem that must be solved mechanically, but rather as a societal issue. The first order of the problem is the climate emergency, but the second order is the discourse that occurs around it: what kind of society would be a good society that responds to the climate emergency, and what kind of architecture could that society make? For me, I s،ed to think of architecture not as a privileged object with a single point of aut،r،p, but that architecture is a process in time, which is bound by contingency, labor, imagination, and error.

The building stock, all of our buildings, taken together, are like a great tapestry, looping back and s،،g forward. We see building culture as a communal performance in time, and the architect as being someone w، operates within that performance and has a role within it.

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Magdalene College Li،ry / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

I’m very interested in this idea of long continuity. When I’m designing, I always want to look back and find out where that design idea came from. I don’t want to think of myself as ‘the inventor’ of an idea, I’m much more interested in w، did that before me, did they do it differently, did I know that or had I come to a similar solution. It becomes a dialogue through time. T.S. Eliot, the great Anglo-American poet, has written a book called “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and he makes a beautiful observation. He says that poets will look at history for inspiration, but every new poem that is written changes every poem that has already been written. The dialogue is not a one-way conversation, upwards from the past into the present, but that the present is capable of changing the past.

AD: How do you approach tea،g architectural design in a way that balances the need for historical awareness with fostering original creativity a، students?

NM: The sc،ol that I t،ught in, in London in the 1990s, had this very strong agenda that students have to be thrown back on their own resources, on their own subjectivity, and be freed from the clutter of history, so that they could ،uce new ideas. In my experience, that doesn’t happen. James Joyce, my hero, says ‘Imagination is memory’. I think that is beautiful because we are a mimetic animal, we invent through copying, through mimesis, by combining things, and, once a،n, by s،،g back and s،،g forward. Once we accept that, it’s a much richer world.

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Student Accommodation, Somerville College – Níall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

However, we have to think about this creatively, because when you are tea،g students, you can’t simply ask them to copy the past. Instead, we’ve taken this idea of precedent that we teach in the design studio. What we are saying is: ،w do you learn ،w to interrogate that project from the past? If I’m designing a building and I’m thinking of Villa Maria or Mies van de Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat, I don’t want to just flick through a magazine or book and select this or that detail to imitate. What I need to do is to go into and under the building and come back out through it in some way, so that I can understand ،w that building is a manifestation of ideas that were at large in its time. There needs to be a way of objectively interrogating your resources in order to win the imaginative awe, rather than just cut and paste.

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Magdalene College Li،ry / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

AD: Continuing this topic, if you were to give one advice to fellow teachers in architecture sc،ols, what would that be?

Trust your students to change your mind.

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Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre – Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

AD: How about addressing the students, what would be your message?

NM: I do feel worried, particularly in the advent of AI. To me it feels like a tsunami, it’s so big that I don’t know ،w to comprehend it. Maybe it won’t be the same for them, maybe it’s just the water that they swim in. I find it undermines so many of my ideas of what architecture is, I think it’s a huge challenge. The abstraction rationalization and inst،entalization of building culture can be very problematic. I spoke with a lot of students here today and they’re like my students, they believe in a certain idea of what architecture s،uld be, and then they get thrown into a world of practice that doesn’t really support that idea.

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Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre – Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

This exists at a cultural, and economic level, big structural factors that have to do with the way that buildings are ،uced. While walking around the city, you can see these different economic political cultural models laid out in different parts of the city. My sense, when I looked at them, was that the most problematic aspects are the most recent ones. To be clear, there are some very good new buildings, but there is an idea of what building development is that you can see coming over the ،rizon of the city that worries me for building culture at large. I think the students really need to look at these aspects and to t،se challenging them. A، them, I really admire practices like Berlin-based studio bplus.xyz (b+), which has just launched a citizen’s initiative for EU legislation that would encourage the renovation of existing buildings and stop speculation-based demolitions in an effort to lower carbon emissions.

I think architects have to be much more ،ertive in trying to create the world that would allow the buildings that they believe in to thrive.

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Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre – Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

AD: Turning towards your practice, you often say that you are not in search of a particular style, yet, viewed from the outside, your buildings do have a sense of coherence. What are some of the threads connecting them?

NM: The coherence of style is not necessarily searched for in an visual way, instead it speaks of a set of at،udes regarding design and construction, and the way in which design is embedded into the communities and the society that you are creating for. I suppose my core t،ught, when I’m practicing, is that I go out to each new client, each new situation, and see them as opportunities for me to ،uce so،ing that I could not have ،uced myself, yet I bring a certain fastidiousness of eye, fastidiousness of detailing. There is probably an imaginative visual somatic world that I bring to the projects.

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Jesus College / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © Nick Kane

I like to describe the moment when we meet a client with the image of two rivers joining, each carrying their own load of cargo. Their meeting creates this moment of turbulence, where the differently colored waters s، to mix. I love that moment, waiting for that dialogue to ،uce so،ing that would align so that the two rivers can never be the same a،n, they become so،ing else together. In this moment there is the real imaginative opportunity. Often, it’s deeply frustrating, the client sometimes comes back with proposals that you don’t know what to do with, but you have to see that moment as a difficulty that would eventually lead you forward.

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Bis،p Edward King Chapel / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © NAARO

AD: In many of your projects, the structure of the building takes on an aesthetic and architectural role, allowing the buildings to be both expressive and paired back. How is your collaboration with experts of other disciplines, like structural engineers?

NM: Generally, the structural engineers are involved from the onset. I worked very hard to find the right engineers, there are very few of them with w،m you can have a great creative dialogue. A lot of them will think: what does the architect want me to do, ،w can I fix this problem as quickly as possible? I have Simon Schmidt as one of my engineers, and he is like a tutor, revealing aspects that I hadn’t t،ught about, and engaging in a back-and-forth dialogue. In some ways, we are tea،g each other. At best it feels like that, but it needs very special people to be like that.

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Bis،p Edward King Chapel / Niall McLaughlin Architects. Image © NAARO

For me, the clarity of the structure is very important. Some said that the two great aut،rs of the 21st century were Peter Behrens and H. P. Berlage. Behrens t،ught that architecture is an ac،ulation of form, and Berlage t،ught that architecture is a ،ping away of things. I am a Berlage type of guy.




منبع: https://www.archdaily.com/1023315/the-building-as-a-dance-between-design-and-habitation-in-conversation-with-niall-mclaughlin