Liam O'Connor (born 1961) is a British architect best known for designing national public memorials in a contemporary classical style. [1]
Liam O'Connor (born 1961) is a British architect best known for designing national public memorials in a contemporary classical style. [1]
O'Connor established his own practice, Liam O’Connor Architects and Planning Consultants, in 1989. [2] In 1992 he won a European prize for his design of two buildings as part of a new urban block development in the centre of Brussels. [2] In 1992, O’Connor received the first prize for his masterplan on the redevelopment of the area around the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. [2] Between 1995 and 1997 he was a special adviser for architecture and urban design to John Gummer during his tenure as Secretary of State for the Environment. [2]
In 1999 he won the international competition to design the Memorial Gates, London, which were inaugurated by Elizabeth II in 2002. [3] In 2004, O'Connor was the architect for the Victoria Cross and George Cross Memorial at the Ministry of Defence Main Building in London. [4] The same year he entered the winning design for the Armed Forces Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, which was official dedicated in a ceremony led by Elizabeth II on 12 October 2007. [5] O'Connor subsequently designed the RAF Bomber Command Memorial, set between Piccadilly and The Green Park in central London, unveiled by Elizabeth II in 2012 during her Diamond Jubilee year. [6]
Liam O'Connor worked alongside Zaha Hadid in the restoration of and extensions to the eighteenth century Magazine Building in Hyde Park Gardens for the creation of a new exhibition facility for the Serpentine Gallery which opened in 2013. The firm then designed the Orangery New Building at Kensington Palace for Historic 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.
O'Connor was commissioned to design the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur-Mer, France, which was formally inaugurated on 6 June 2019 by British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron. [7] [8]
O'Connor is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Art Workers' Guild and INTBAU, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. [1] [2] He was previously an adjunct professor in architecture at the University of Notre Dame. [2] In addition to memorials, he has designed numerous residential and commercial buildings. [2]
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 Singe 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. In 2021 the medal was awarded to Frank Gehry for his Eisenhower memorial in Washington DC.
Buckingham Palace is a royal residence in London, and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a focal point for the British people at times of national rejoicing and mourning.
Portland stone is a limestone geological formation dating to the Tithonian age of the Late Jurassic that is quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major public buildings in London such as St Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. Portland stone is also exported to many countries, being used for example at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
St Clement Danes is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London. It is now situated near the 19th-century Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. Although the first church on the site was reputedly founded in the 9th century by the Danes, the current building replaced the medieval church building and was completed in 1682 by celebrated architect Sir Christopher Wren. Wren's building was gutted by Luftwaffe bombing raids during the Blitz and not restored until 1958, when it was adapted to its current function as the central church of the Royal Air Force.
RAF Bomber Command controlled the Royal Air Force's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. Along with the United States Army Air Forces, it played the central role in the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II. From 1942 onward, the British bombing campaign against Germany became less restrictive and increasingly targeted industrial sites and the civilian manpower base essential for German war production. In total 501,536 operational sorties were flown, 2.25 billion pounds of bombs were dropped and 8,325 aircraft lost in action. Bomber Command crews also suffered a high casualty rate: 55,573 were killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew, a 44.4% death rate. A further 8,403 men were wounded in action, and 9,838 became prisoners of war.
The year 2007 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Yasmeen Lari is Pakistan's first female architect. She is best known for her involvement in the intersection of architecture and social justice. Since her official retirement from architectural practice in 2000, her UN-recognized NGO Heritage Foundation Pakistan has been taking on humanitarian relief work and historical conservation projects in rural villages all around Pakistan. She was awarded the prestigious Fukuoka Prize in 2016 and the RIBA's Royal Gold Medal in 2023.
RAF Uxbridge was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Uxbridge, within the London Borough of Hillingdon, occupying a 44.6-hectare (110-acre) site that originally belonged to the Hillingdon House estate. The British Government purchased the estate in 1915, three years before the founding of the RAF. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the station was open to the public.
An orangery or orangerie is a room or dedicated building, historically where orange and other fruit trees are protected during the winter, as a large form of greenhouse or conservatory. In the modern day an orangery could refer to either a conservatory or greenhouse built to house fruit trees, or a conservatory or greenhouse meant for another purpose.
Alireza Sagharchi RIBA FRSA is a British-Iranian architect. He is an internationally renowned and leading practitioner of contemporary classical architecture and traditional urban design. During his professional career, he has been responsible for major master planning and building projects in the UK, Europe, North America and the Middle East.
The Herrenhausen Gardens of Herrenhausen Palace are located in Herrenhausen, an urban district of Hanover, the capital of Lower Saxony, Germany. Dating to the era of the Kings of Hanover, they comprise Great Garden, Hill Garden, Georgen Garden and Guelf Garden.
The Royal Air Force Memorial is a military memorial on the Victoria Embankment in central London, dedicated to the memory of the casualties of the Royal Air Force in World War I. Unveiled in 1923, it became a Grade II listed structure in 1958, and was upgraded to Grade II* in 2018. It is considered to be the official memorial of the RAF and related services.
Stiff Leadbetter was a British architect and builder, one of the most successful architect–builders of the 1750s and 1760s, working for many leading aristocratic families.
The New Zealand War Memorial in London is a memorial to the war dead of New Zealand in the First and Second World Wars, unveiled in 2006. Officially named "Southern Stand", the memorial was designed by architect John Hardwick-Smith and sculptor Paul Dibble, both from New Zealand.
Richard Sammons is an American architect, architectural theorist, visiting professor, and chief designer of Fairfax & Sammons Architects with offices in New York City, New York and Palm Beach, Florida. The firm has an international practice specializing in classical and traditional architecture, interior design and urban planning. Sammons was instrumental in the reemergence of classical design as a major movement in America through his designs as well as his work as an instructor at the Prince of Wales Institute in Britain in 1992-3 and as a founding member of the Institute of Classical Architecture in 1991. From 1996 to 2004, the Fairfax & Sammons office also served as the headquarters for the noted American architecture critic Henry Hope Reed Jr. (1915) and Classical America, the organization he founded in 1968. In 2013, Fairfax & Sammons received the Arthur Ross Award for Lifetime Achievement in Architecture, an award created to recognize and celebrate excellence in the classical tradition.
The Royal Air Force Bomber Command Memorial is a memorial in Green Park, London, commemorating the crews of RAF Bomber Command who embarked on missions during the Second World War. The memorial, on the south side of Piccadilly, facing Hyde Park Corner, was built to mark the sacrifice of 55,573 aircrew from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Czechoslovakia and other allied countries, as well as civilians of all nations killed during raids.
New Classical architecture, also known as New Classicism or Contemporary Classical architecture, is a contemporary movement that builds upon the principles of Classical architecture. It is sometimes considered the modern continuation of Neoclassical architecture, even though other styles might be cited as well, such as Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance or even non-Western styles – often referenced and recreated from a postmodern perspective rather than as strict revivals.
Philip Dalton Hepworth was a British architect. He studied in both the UK and France, at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the École des Beaux-Arts, and returned to work as an architect after serving in the First World War. He rose to prominence in the 1930s, featuring in a book by architectural critic Trystan Edwards and winning the commission in 1932 to design Walthamstow Town Hall, which was eventually completed in 1942. Another civic building of this period was Wiltshire County Hall at Trowbridge. He also designed a handful of private houses, including Pemberley, in Loughton, 1936. He lived in Zoffany House in Strand-on-the-Green, Chiswick, London, from 1936.
David Williams-Ellis is a British sculptor whose primary subject matter is the human figure.
The year 2021 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
The British Normandy Memorial is a war memorial near the village of Ver-sur-Mer in Normandy, France. It was unveiled on 6 June 2021, the 77th anniversary of D-Day, and it is dedicated to soldiers who died under British command during the Normandy landings.