Architect Lorcan O’Herlihy is among a new generation of what critic Anthony Vidler terms “unrepentant modernists" who are responding to the rugged landscape, brash urbanity and harsh light of Southern California. O’Herlihy combines the clean bones of modernist heroes like Neutra and Kahn with carefully crafted materials that bring a rich materiality to his work. 

In 2004 the Architectural League of New York selected Lorcan O’Herlihy as one of eight “emerging voices" in the United States. His firm, LOHA, has earned numerous awards, including 14 AIA Design Awards. The firm’s work has been exhibited internationally and featured in publications such as Architectural Record, Architectural Review, Architecture, Progressive Architecture, A+U, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Wallpaper and Metropolis Magazine. Rockport Publishers published a monograph, Lorcan O’Herlihy, in 1999.

Born in Dublin and raised in Southern California, O’Herlihy studied at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo during the “Poly Canyon" era in the 70s, when students were designing and constructing buildings in a canyon area on a rural part of campus. After graduating in 1981 he joined Roche, Dinkeloo and Associates in New York City, working on additions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art among other projects. He then worked with I.M. Pei on the glass pyramid addition to the Louvre Museum in Paris and as an associate with Stephen Holl Architects, where he was responsible for several projects, including the Hybrid Building in Seaside, Florida that received a national AIA Honor Award. He founded LOHA in 1990.

O’Herlihy has taught and lectured at institutions such as the Architectural Association in London, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Columbia University and the National Building Museum in Washington, D. C. among others.

Polk Stanley Rowland Curzon Porter Architects Ltd. co-sponsored this lecture in honor of the late Mort Karp.