John Joseph Overton Orpen

Born in Johannesburg, Orpen trained in London where he studied at the Architectural Association from 1931. His contemporaries there included George Stegmann and Herbert Gould Porter with whom he later entered into partnership in Pretoria. On graduation (A.R.I.B.A.) he worked in the office of Wellesley & Wills in London before returning to South Africa. While a student he travelled in Prussia, France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium and Austria. On his return to South Africa about 1936, he spent ten months in Gordon Leith's office in Johannesburg. He then spent six months in G Stegmann's newly opened office in Klerksdorp (c 1937) and in 1938 entered into partnership with Stegmann and Porter (cf. Stegmann, Orpen & Porter). He resigned from the Institute of South African Architects in 1957 in order to act as Executive Director of the Timber and Allied Materials Development Association (T.A.M.D.A.) Orpen was President-in-Chief of the Institute of South African Architects from 1956 to 1957. He died in Johannesburg in 1959.

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