Liam O’Connor Wins 2025 Driehaus Architecture Prize

On January 23, the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture announced Liam O’Connor, founder of London-based Liam O’Connor Architects and Planning Consultants, as recipient of its 2025 Driehaus Architecture Prize. The annual accolade, established in 2003, honors “a living architect whose work embodies the highest ideals of traditional and classical architecture in contemporary society, and creates a positive cultural, environmental, and artistic impact.” The $200,000 prize—double that of the Pritzker Prize, it’s the largest cash award for architecture worldwide—is named for the late Richard H. Driehaus, a Chicago investor, philanthropist, and champion of historic preservation.

In awarding this year’s prize, the jury praised O’Connor, who is also a former visiting professor of architecture at Notre Dame, for “skillfully integrating the setting, the landscape, the fine art, and construction details” into his body of work, which includes private residences, commercial buildings, and urban plans across the United Kingdom, as well as in Belgium, Switzerland, and France. In 2013, his practice collaborated with Zaha Hadid on the renovation and expansion of a disused 1805 military building at Kensington Gardens that now serves as Serpentine North (formerly the Sackler Gallery), one of two exhibition buildings operated by the Serpentine Galleries.