The most modern and distinguished of Irish-born architects to practise in America, Kevin Roche graduated in architecture from University College, Dublin in 1945.

    After designing a warehouse for his father, a Tipperary-born manager of a dairy company, and some early work in Dublin practices, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1948. Ambitious plans for a ten-year world tour of architectural offices foundered during graduate work in Chicago under Mies van der Rohe, but he quickly found work with Eero Saarinen's practice, for whom he acted as principal design associate from 1954  to 1961.

    On Mr. Saarinen's death in that year (Kevin hailed his mentor's "short life" as describing "the full dimension and true role of an architect"), the Irishman and his colleague John Dinkeloo completed ten major projects that would define excellence in architecture for most of the 20th. century, among them the St. Louis Arch, the TWA terminal at JFK Airport, Dulles International Airport in Washington DC, the Deere headquarters building in Illinois, and the CBS television network offices in New York.  

    In moving to a joint practice operated with Dinkeloo in Connecticut, Roche continued to make statements with buildings such as the Oakland Museum in California, the General Foods headquarters near New York City, and the Ford Foundation headquarters in downtown Manhattan.  His signature and pioneering atrium feature on the Ford building became almost a cliche of modern architectural design in the decades that followed.

    Awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1982, Roche has made the last 25 years of his creative life a tribute to flexibility and innovation, continuing his corporate work for clients such as Lucent Technologies and Total Systems at locations throughout the United States.  But he has also spread his activity worldwide,  working with Singapore interests on multi-million-square-foot commercial developments in that state and in Tokyo, as well as completing a one-million-square foot project in Kuala Lumpur and building a headquarters for a Turkish pharmaceutical conglomerate in Istanbul.

    He has also continued to be involved in public projects, including a recreational facility for MIT in Boston, a 1000-room student residence and separate student center at New York University,  the reinstallation of the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, and the city's Museum of Jewish Heritage.

    Hailed by the Pritzker Jury as "an innovator who does not worship innovation for itself, a professional unconcerned with trends, a quiet humble man who executes great works, a generous man of strictest standards for his own work," his response acknowledged that "art comes hard. It is the conclusion of profound thought  on the nature of things rather than on acceptability and acclaim  .... we should accept the responsibility to create our environment and use the opportunity we have to lead and educate society into improving its habitat, letting other times judge what is art and what is fancy."

    Although his work is well known and highly regarded in his native country, his single design commission there (a master plan and 2500 detailed design drawings for  a five-million-square-foot commercial and convention complex on Dublin's south quays) is only now being implemented.

    Now well into his eighties, Kevin Roche continues to be actively involved in his practice. "Boots out the front door is the only way I'll go," he told an Irish journalist in 1999. "Anyone in the creative world doesn't retire. You simply can't. Why would you give up so much fun?"