Brian J. Connolly
Brian Connolly is a graduate of the Architectural Programs at the Institute of Technology and Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland. Following graduation, he also qualified, with honors, as a Member of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. He has over 35 years of post-graduate professional experience in the United States and Europe and is a Registered Architect, licensed to practice in the State Of New York from 1992.
With a background in the design and documentation of educational and religious buildings, he joined the firm in 1989 as a project architect and led the design team for the US headquarters of a European bank which had recently acquired a local banking organization with 180 branch offices throughout the north-east. Subsequently, immediate project experience also included law offices, a security-control center for a Fortune 500 company and commercial and trading facilities for other financial corporations in the New York metropolitan area. He has since been responsible for the design of a wide variety of project types including numerous institutional, commercial and residential facilities for a diverse group of clients, ranging from the New York State Power and Port Authorities and the Philosophy Day School, to the Juilliard School and School of American Ballet at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, among others (see Select Client List). His experience with both building and interior projects comprises new construction as well as historic restoration and rehabilitation of existing structures and spaces. And he is further involved in the design and production of custom furnishings, cabinetry and related industrial design products.
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He is a member of the American Institute of Architects and Irish Business Organization of New York and has served on the construction industry’s International Building Products Advisory Board for the Irish Government. Other service includes most notably his role as co-founder of the not-for-profit St Brendan the Navigator Restoration & Education Foundation, which
was responsible for the restoration of the important 12 th -century Hiberno-Romanesque Clonfert Cathedral, in Ireland. He authored the historical report instrumental in bringing the project to the attention of the World Monuments Fund, which featured it on its Millennium List of the world’s 100 Most Endangered Buildings. In recognition of other dedicated service, meanwhile, he was made a Fellow of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America and chaired its Publication Committee which, among other things, is focused on the preservation and reprinting of historical architectural texts and monographs of historically important practitioners.
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He is committed, with his partner, to the future of the profession and the encouragement of a respect for the important place of history, craftsmanship and appropriate technique in the practice of architecture. He has contributed, accordingly, to the support and publication of the new, facsimile edition of the classic Le Vaticane et La Basilique de Saint Pierre by Paul Letarouilly, as well
as to the establishment, under the auspices of the Institute of Classical Architecture, of the Zivkovic Connolly Drawing Prize for young architects. He has also been invited to serve as a guest juror at architectural schools in the United States and Europe.
Recent architectural work executed by Brian Connolly has been accorded design awards by various architectural and other professional organizations. In recognition of their design excellence, many of these projects have been widely published, in the United States, as well as in other professional and popular publications in Europe and Japan.