Pugin exhibition continues until 19 October

Our Pugin exhibition in the Russell Library runs until 19 October". You can check out our exhibition (details below) during your visit.

PUGIN, MAYNOOTH AND REVIVAL

Son of a French émigré artist, the illustrious architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) spent his London and Lincolnshire childhood in the early 19th century endlessly drawing and exploring the medieval Gothic or pointed architecture of England and France. With this firm foundation he strove passionately to inculcate natural Gothic principles in architecture and design through his buildings, furnishings and illustrated books.

His success, linked inextricably with the revival of Catholicism and his own conversion was played out in the literature and is widely visible today in the architecture of Ireland as well as England. He is perhaps best remembered for his spectacular work on the Houses of Parliament in London, which was carried out in tandem with so many other projects. The magnificent quadrangle designed by him for St Patrick’s College Maynooth, and completed after his death, is the largest of his Irish works.

The exhibition includes Pugin sketches - watercolours and drawings – loaned by descendants and brought together for the first time in public; jewellery designed by him, original Pugin drawings loaned by the Irish Architectural Archive and copies of documents from the National Archives. The superb collections of the Russell Library, itself part of Pugin’s quadrangle, include some of his Maynooth plans and correspondence, his illustrated printed textbooks and manuals and the early-printed books which were intrinsically important to his work.

The exhibition is located in the Russell Library and is open to the public. Admission is free. Regretfully, there is no disabled access.