Tom de Paor graduated from the School of Architecture in University College Dublin (UCD) in 1991. In that year he won an architectural competition with Emma O'Neill to build a Visitor Centre at Ballincollig Co Cork. In 1996 he was awarded the contract to make a strategic master plan of the A13 motorway by the Council of Dagenham in the UK. He was appointed by the Cultural Relations Committee to make a representation at the Venice Biennale in 2000. He has been described as "the most original talent to emerge in Irish architecture in the past 10 years."
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In respect of de Paor's Venice exhibit: "Multiple readings are facilitated by de Paor's discussion-based method of work, which is particularly Irish in the way that it makes use of language - word plays and double meanings."