O'Gorman was born on July 6, 1905, in Coyoacán, Mexican Federal District, a suburb within greater Mexico City, to an Irish father and a Mexican mother. In the 1920s he studied architecture at the University of San Carlos. He became a well known architect, worked on the new Bank Of Mexico building, and under the influence of Le Corbusier introduced modern functionalist architecture to Mexico City.
His paintings often treated Mexican history, landscape, and legends. He painted the murals in the Independence Room in Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle.