Romaldo Giurgola AO (1920–2016), architect, was a founding partner of the firm that won the international design competition for Australia's New Parliament House in 1980. Giurgola studied in his native Italy before moving to the USA where he held academic positions at Cornell and Columbia universities, and co-founded Mitchell/Giurgola Architects in Philadelphia. By the early 1960s his style, mixing modernist and inclusive flavours, saw him identified as a key member of the 'Philadelphia School'. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Society of Architects in 1982, while work on New Parliament House was under way. In 1988 Aldo Giurgola settled in Canberra. He designed a tiny Catholic church in the suburb of Charnwood and a home for himself at Lake Bathurst, near Goulburn.
Both of these buildings are represented in Mandy Martin's painting of Giurgola, which depicts him by the pool in the Members' Hall in the centre of Parliament House. The diagonal shaft of light echoes that in Tom Roberts's 'big picture' of the opening of the First Parliament in 1901.
Gift of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 2005
© Mandy Martin/Copyright Agency, 2024
The Royal Australian Institute of Architects (1 portrait)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Romaldo Giurgola talks about his portrait and the relationship between architecture and landscape.
Artist Mandy Martin describes the creation of her portrait of Aldo Giurgola, principal architect of Australia's Parliament House.
