Kevin Roche (born 14th June 1922) was born in Dublin, but grew up in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, and educated at Rockwell College, before studying architecture at University College Dublin.
According to The Irish Times, 'years later, he recalled having to draw acanthus leaves and fluted classical columns as part of the Beaux Arts training then offered by the UCD School of Architecture - at a time when most US students were "taught to distain the past".'
After graduation in 1945, he worked with Michael Scott on the Busáras project. According to Wilfrid Cantwell, Roche only worked on the design for a short time but contributed to the external appearance of the finished building on the pavilion storey. He joined the practice at the same time as Patrick Scott who was in his class at college, and who had a large role in the project through the design of the mosaic tiling. He left Dublin in 1948 and worked with Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew before he emigrated to the United States to study with Mies van der Rohe.
Instead of returning to Ireland, he got a job with Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) and Associates from 1951 until 1961. Here he worked in the planning department before becoming chief associate in 1956. After Saarinen's death he continued the practice in partnership with the structural engineer John Dinkeloo (1918-1981) under the name Roche and Dinkeloo. Here, he completed such projects as the Gateways Arch at St Louis, Missouri, and the TWA Terminal ar JFK Airport.
Some of his more famous buildings are the Oakland Museum in California and the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York, which along with the TWA Terminal has been listed for preservation, and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the Knights of Columbanus Building. His firm has for some time being one of the preferred firms for large corporate headquarters and have built offices for General Foods Corporation and others from cities from Toyko to Atlanta to Kuala Lumpur. He has also been responsible for many buildings for the Cummins Engine Corp. in Columbus, Indiana. In 1982, he won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize and one of many awards that he has received.
In all, Roche has been responsible for some 51 major projects in the period 1962-82. Paul Goldberger, a New York Times architecture critic, described Roche as "one of the most creative designers in glass that the 20th century has produced," and "a brilliantly innovative designer; his work manages to be inventive without ever falling into the trap of excessive theatricality."
