Liam O’Connor has been named the recipient of the 2025 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. O’Connor was recognized in honor of his lifelong dedication to and outstanding achievements in creating distinctive private, public and civic projects.

O’Connor’s extensive body of work is “infused with a focus on deeply shared emotion,” according to the prize citation. “From commercial buildings, village extensions, urban plans, residences and cultural buildings to public monuments and commemorative designs, O’Connor’s projects skillfully integrate the setting, the landscape, the fine art and construction details that set apart his work for this year’s jury.”

The citation states, “The designs of his memorials bring forward an emotional response to heroism. The integrity of construction is evident in his public structures, particularly the British Normandy Memorial that overlooks ‘Gold Beach’ — the code name given to one of the five beaches along the Normandy invasion coast, the battle site that led to the liberation of France and Western Europe during World War II.”

This memorial was introduced to the public on June 6, 2021 — 77 years after the D-Day landings in 1944 — and includes 22,442 names of fallen servicemembers who sacrificed their lives for the British Command. Their names are carved into the 160 columns of limestone within the memorial. O’Connor chose a site and designed a masterplan for 60 acres of land and several structures, built from 3,500 tons of Burgundy limestone and hundreds of sustainably felled oaks trees with the help of more than 500 craftspeople.

O’Connor’s work is “exceptional in meaning and in the symbolic references within his designs, which include all aspects of the art of sculpture,” the citation continues.

“He anchors each memorial into the beauty of its landscape with the utmost respect for its surroundings. While commemorating the RAF Bomber Command members who lost their lives, O’Connor’s reuse of riveted metal from aircraft remains for the metal framework adds an emotional impact to the extraordinary composition of the structure, revealing his ability to capture the spirit of the bomber pilots. The site O’Connor chose is masterful as it integrates the surrounding park and Constitution Hill and is particularly exceptional in its tectonics,” according to the citation.

Stefanos Polyzoides, jury chair and the Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the School of Architecture, said, “O’Connor’s work with memorial monuments is a representation of deeper value and of national memory that is in enormously short supply these days.”

The jury citation concludes, “O’Connor’s memorial architecture is both classical and classic. It is classical since the language of the memorials refers to a specific historical period. Yet it is also classic because the collective memory it evokes as a ‘remembrance of things past’ and things to come transcends time, alas, for as long as we remain humans.”

In conjunction with the Driehaus Prize, Philippe Rotthier was named the next Henry Hope Reed Award laureate for his lifelong success in elevating new traditional architecture and urbanism to public prominence. The Henry Hope Reed Award is granted annually to an individual working outside the practice of architecture who has supported the cultivation of the traditional city, its architecture and its art.

Rotthier’s support of traditional architecture extends through his own publications and his support of other writers and practitioners, according to the prize citation. He also established a European architectural competition.

“The European Prize of Architecture Philippe Rotthier competition established a broad range of foundational support for new traditional and classical work across continents and has enabled an entire generation that includes 2025 Driehaus Prize laureate Liam O’Connor,” the jury citation states.

“Rotthier has seeded and cultivated the many different dimensions required in the formation of a movement. Thanks to his lifetime contribution in establishing the European Prize of Architecture Philippe Rotthier competition, many students, designers, architects, practitioners and craftsmen were encouraged to adopt the educational thinking of the new traditional architecture and urbanism,” the citation reads.

Polyzoides said, “The foundation that we now see flourishing is dedicated to a culture of continuity that Rotthier has worked to create. He is one of the leaders of the charge to rebuild our communities in ways proven to have helped humans flourish over thousands of years.”

This year’s Driehaus Prize and Henry Hope Reed laureates were selected by a jury composed of Melissa DelVecchio, partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects; Michael Lykoudis, professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame; Léon Krier, architect and urbanist; Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, founding principal of DPZ CoDesign and professor at the University of Miami; Demetri Porphyrios, principal of Porphyrios Associates, London; and Julia Treese, partner at Treese Architekten in Berlin and Munich. Polyzoides, partner at Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists, in Pasadena, California, served as jury chair.

The $200,000 Driehaus Prize, the largest cash award in architecture worldwide, is granted by the Driehaus Trust, in the name of Richard H. Driehaus, founder and chairman of Chicago-based Driehaus Capital Management LLC, as is the Henry Hope Reed Award of $50,000.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220, c.gates@nd.edu.

Originally published by Carrie Rulli at news.nd.edu on January 23, 2025.