Liam O'Connor (born 1961) is a Britisharchitect best known for designing national publicmemorials in a contemporaryclassical style.[1][2]
O'Connor established his own practice, Liam O’Connor Architects and Planning Consultants, in 1989.[3] In 1992 he won a European prize for his design of two buildings as part of a new urban block development in the centre ofBrussels.[3] In 1992, O’Connor received the first prize for his masterplan on the redevelopment of the area around thePolish Academy of Sciences inWarsaw.[3] Between 1995 and 1997 he was aspecial adviser for architecture and urban design toJohn Gummer during his tenure asSecretary of State for the Environment.[3]
In 1999 he won the international competition to design theMemorial Gates, London, which were inaugurated byElizabeth II in 2002.[4] In 2004, O'Connor was the architect for the Victoria Cross and George Cross Memorial at theMinistry of Defence Main Building in London.[5] The same year he entered the winning design for theArmed Forces Memorial at theNational Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, which was official dedicated in a ceremony led by Queen Elizabeth II on 12 October 2007.[6] O'Connor subsequently designed theRAF Bomber Command Memorial, set between Piccadilly and The Green Park in central London, unveiled by Elizabeth II in 2012 during herDiamond Jubilee year.[7]
Liam O'Connor worked alongsideZaha Hadid in the restoration of and extensions to the eighteenth century Magazine Building inHyde Park Gardens for the creation of a new exhibition facility for theSerpentine Gallery which opened in 2013. The firm then designed the Orangery New Building atKensington Palace forHistoric Royal Palaces. This was a carefully placed extension in brick and Portland stone to the Grade I listed Orangery at the Palace, an eighteenth century work attributed to Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor.[8]
O'Connor was commissioned to design theBritish Normandy Memorial inVer-sur-Mer, France, which was formally inaugurated on 6 June 2019 by British Prime MinisterTheresa May and French PresidentEmmanuel Macron.[9][10]
O'Connor is a member of theRoyal Institute of British Architects, theArt Workers' Guild andINTBAU, and a fellow of theRoyal Society of Arts.[1][3] He was previously an adjunct professor in architecture at theUniversity of Notre Dame.[3] In addition to memorials, he has designed numerous residential and commercial buildings.[3]
His new house in Belgravia, one of the largest new houses on the Grosvenor Estate in a century, won the UK Property Awards 'Best Architecture Single Residence, London' award in 2022.
The Armed Forces, Normandy and RAF Bomber Command memorials have won the US based National Sculpture Society Henry Hering Medal for Art & Architecture in 2022, 2023 and 2024.[11]
Liam O'Connor is the 2025 Laureate of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize. The jury acknowledged his lifelong dedication to the design of a body of excellent new traditional public and private buildings and civil monuments – ''works projecting grace and beauty and expressing the shared emotions and cultural expectations of their audiences.''[12]
