Romaldo Giurgola
Romaldo (Aldo) Giurgola AO (born 2 September 1920) is an Italian-American-Australian academic architect, professor, and author. Giurgola was born in Galatina, in the south of Italy in 1920. After service in the Italian armed forces during World War II, he was educated at the Sapienza University of Rome. He received a master's degree in architecture from Columbia University, and has been a partner in Philadelphia firm Mitchell/Giurgola Architects since 1958.
Professor
He has been a professor at Cornell and at the University of Pennsylvania, then at Columbia, before becoming chair of the Columbia architectural department in 1966. He is presently Ware Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Columbia. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 1982.
Architect
The first important building of Mitchell/Giurgola was the Wright Brothers National Memorial Visitor Center (1957) for the US National Park Service, a building that brought them national attention for three reasons. It was one of the first NPS visitors' centers that became a building type unto itself. The design was consonant with a certain aesthetic preoccupation with aviation, flight, technology and space travel of the time, the same zeitgeist that produced Saarinen's TWA Terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport. And it was seen as a break with strict modernist tenets in its respect for the site and the program, as opposed to what Giurgola called "the imposition of abstract forms".
In Philadelphia, Giurgola had formed a relationship with Louis Kahn, who held similar views. In April 1961 the architectural critic Jan Rowan grouped Giurgola, Kahn, Robert Venturi, George Qualls, Robert Geddes and others into "The Philadelphia School". Giurgola has published several books on Kahn's work and philosophy.
Parliament House competition
He was invited to join the panel of judges for the 1980 international competition for the landmark Australian Parliament House in Canberra. Instead, he preferred to be an entrant himself.[1] After winning the competition, Giurgola moved to Australia and practises there. He adopted Australian citizenship in January 2000.[2]
Honours and awards
The ACSA (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) honored Giurgola with the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award in 1987-88.[3]
He was awarded the RAIA Gold Medal by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1988.
In January 1989 he was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia, "for service to architecture, particularly the new Parliament House, Canberra".[4] The award became substantive when he adopted Australian citizenship in 2000.[2]
In 1990 Giurgola's second notable Canberra building, the modest St Thomas Aquinas Church in Charnwood, won the RAIA's Canberra Medallion.
In 2001, he was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal, "for service as Principal Architect of the new and permanent Parliament House".[5]
In 2004 his St Patrick's Cathedral, Parramatta, won him Australia's highest architectural award, the RAIA's Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Buildings, which he was first awarded in 1989 for the Parliament House.
In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Sydney.[6]
A resident of Canberra since the 1980s, Giurgola recently completed work on his own house at Lake Bathurst near Goulburn.
The portrait of Romaldo Giurgola painted by Mandy Martin, was gifted by the RAIA to the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra in 2005.[7]
Major projects
- United Fund Headquarters Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1971)
- Columbus East High School, Columbus, Indiana (1972)
- Lang Music Building, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (1973)
- Tredyffrin Public Library, Strafford, Pennsylvania (1976)
- Sherman Fairchild Center for the Life Sciences, on the campus of Columbia University (1977)
- Parliament House, Canberra (1981-1988)
- INA Tower, Philadelphia
- Layfayette Place (now Swissotel), Boston, Massachusetts (1985)
- Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasília, Brazil
- Penn Mutual Tower, Philadelphia
- Wright Brothers National Memorial Visitor Center
References
- ^ Tony Stephens, Like his work, he'll blend into the landcape, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 1999
- ^ a b The unsung hero of the hill, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 April 2005
- ^ *ACSA Archives, Distinguished Professor Award winners.
- ^ It's an Honour: Hon AO
- ^ It's an Honour: Centenary Medal
- ^ "The unsung hero of the hill". Steve Meacham. smh. 16 April 2005. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
- ^ "Romaldo Giurgola". architecturemedia. February 2006. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
- Use dmy dates from September 2011
- 1920 births
- Living people
- Australian architects
- Italian architects
- American architects
- Architects from Pennsylvania
- Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- Columbia University faculty
- Sapienza University of Rome alumni
- American people of Italian descent
- Architecture firms based in Pennsylvania
- Recipients of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal
- Officers of the Order of Australia
- Recipients of the Centenary Medal