Brian O'Rorke

Career In early professional practice, O'Rorke worked on the design of small private houses in London and the country, and in 1932 produced the design for a block of modern tenement flats erected in Islington, London. He and Kenneth Peacock also submitted a design in the Royal Institute of British Architects' year-long competition for the design of their new headquarters in London, underway from 1931. Of some 284 designs submitted from unidentified architects throughout Britain and the empire, in 1932 George Grey Wornum won the award and commission, with the second award to Verner Owen Rees. O'Rorke and Peacock, won one of three third awards, alongside Percy Thomas and Ernest Prestwich, and Frank Roscoe and Duncan Wylson. Several other New Zealanders received honourable mention.

The Mayor Gallery In April 1933, Fred Mayor and Douglas Cooper, opened The Mayor Gallery, a new modern art gallery designed by O'Rorke and Arundell Clarke, at 18 Cork Street, London. The gallery opened with an exhibition of recent painting by English, French and German artists and would go on to present the ideas of many modern artists to England for the first time; Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Joan Miró amongst them.

RMS Orion Colin Anderson, a director of Orient Steam Navigation Company, had seen opportunity in the future of passenger ships and in the search for an architect who could assist him in his idea of RMS Orion being a truly modern ocean liner of the best contemporary design, had put aside a few modernist notables. He eventually found Brian O'Rorke through his friends Betty and Ralph Rayner. O'Rorke had been working on Ashcombe Tower, their new modern home complete with furnishings, in Devon, and suitably possessed the suite of capability that Anderson had been looking for.

In August 1935, the result of O'Rorke's interior design was an open air layout, making use of removable and folding walls, sliding glass doors, and relatively enormous promenade decks to keep cooling breezes flowing through spaces passengers could relax in. Rooms without access to the deck of the ship were also made to feel breezy by being as light and uncluttered as possible. Furnishings were chosen for their clean lines, wood given matte finishes, and columns left unadorned. Moreover, the chromium and Bakelite used extensively throughout the ship meant surfaces were more resistant to the wearing effects of sea air, a first in liners. This was a new type of functional interior that could be linked to the functionality of a ship's exterior.

RMS Orion proved so successful, O'Rorke designed interiors for many more of Orient's ships. One of these was SS Orcades. He knew what talent lay unused in Australasia and included Australians and New Zealanders amongst project artists and designers—Margaret Preston, Douglas Annand, Keith Murray, Paul Pascoe, John and Helen Hutton, Frederick Halford Coventry. His modern approach intended to set a new standard for aircraft, in contrast to the tendency for ornate passenger transport interiors of recent periods.

Buildings His buildings include the Berkeley Hotel, London; The New Royal Observatory (now Herstmonceux Science Centre) at Herstmonceux in Sussex (1951–52, built 1955); a country house, Ashcombe Tower (1935) on Haldon, near Dawlish, Devon; and halls of residence at the University of Nottingham. All are in an abstracted traditional style which is reminiscent of the work of his near-contemporary, Donald McMorran. Unbuilt designs included one for the National Theatre in London.

Personal life On 19 January 1929, O'Rorke married illustrator and decorative artist Juliet Mabel Olga Wigan (1903–1988), elder daughter of solicitor Ernest Edward Wigan, MA, of Oakley Lodge, Weybridge, Surrey, and his wife Mabel Helen, daughter of Robert Watson Willis of Hinxton House, East Sheen, Surrey. They had four children—a son, Forbes Brian (born 1930), and three daughters: Sarah (born 1936), who married the publisher John Letts, owner of the Folio Society from 1971; Virginia (born 1937); and Georgia (born 1942).

Gallery