Niall McCullough died on 20 August 2021, before he could see his Printing House building in Trinity College fully completed, and before he could finish his latest book – Dublin: Creation, Occupation, Destruction. His startling freshness and originality of thinking about buildings and spaces offer a way to sustainably use our cities and our landscapes, bringing to bear the weight and depth of close observation, deep historical knowledge, and sheer imagination, to create conditions for an intervention into an existing building, or to make a new building within a context.

A range of speakers discuss the continuum of his life and work - woven through with buildings and books – and its significance for the future as a way of thinking imaginatively about our material culture. At a time when it has never been more relevant to question how we should build, and where the answer may sometimes be not to build at all, but to repurpose, Niall’s approach to architecture and the environment puts an urgent value on the actual fabric of our historic cities, asking us to read beyond immediate appearances to ensure we carry this fragile construct with us into the future.

Speakers:

Moderator: Eddie Conroy, County Architect, South Dublin County Council

Dr. Linda Doyle, Provost, Trinity College Dublin

Prof. Roy Foster, Oxford University

James Conway, Director, English Touring Opera

Ricardo Meri de la Maza, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Editor TC Cuadernos

Rajeev Vederah, Chancellor, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Punjab, India

Shelley McNamara, Grafton Architects

Prof. Christine Casey, Trinity College Dublin

Iseult McCullough, McCullough Mulvin Architects

Nathalie Weadick, Irish Architecture Foundation

Organised by the Irish Architecture Foundation, Trinity College Dublin and McCullough Mulvin Architects, this symposium took place in the Provost's House on Friday 4th November 2022, and was followed by a tour of McCullough Mulvin buildings on the Trinity Campus (including Camera Obscura door in Douglas Hyde Gallery, Ussher Library, Long Room Hub and Printing House Square) on Saturday 5th November 2022. A recording of the presentations will be available shortly.