Romaldo Giurgola

Romaldo Giurgola was born in Rome (or Galatina), Italy, in 1920.

After service in the Italian armed forces during World War II, he studied architecture at the Sapienza University of Rome, completing the equivalent of a B.Arch. with honors in 1949.

After being awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in his graduation year, Giurgola moved to the United States and received a master's degree in architecture from Columbia University in 1951.

Academia

In 1954, Giurgola accepted a position as an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

Giurgola was appointed chair of the Columbia University School of Architecture in 1965.

Architecture

US

Giurgola formed Mitchell/Giurgola Architects in Philadelphia with Ehrman B. Mitchell in 1958. After becoming chair at Columbia University architecture school, he opened a second office of the firm in New York City.

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' centres 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. 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 of architecture", which had high regard for classical Roman architecture. Giurgola published several books on Kahn's work and philosophy.

Giurgola moved to Australia and practised there after Parliament House was completed. He was married to Adelaide, who was born in the US. She developed Alzheimer's disease in later life and died in Australia in 1997. Giurgola took up Australian citizenship in January 2000.

By 2005 he had built his own house at Lake Bathurst, near Goulburn, New South Wales.