Romaldo Giurgola AO (1920–2016) was a founding partner of Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects, the firm that won the international competition to design Australian 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 in 1958 co-founded Mitchell/Giurgola Architects in Philadelphia. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Society of Architects in 1982, while work on the new Parliament House was under way. In 1988 Giurgola settled in Canberra, designing a tiny Catholic church in Charnwood and a home for himself at Lake Bathurst, near Goulburn; both are represented in Mandy Martin’s painting.
The architect and artist had known each other for many years when this portrait was made. It is unconventional in that Giurgola appears small scale amid a melding of the internal architectural space of Parliament House and the surrounding landscape. This depiction echoed Giurgola’s design ethos that ‘the building should nest with the hill, symbolically rise out of the Australian landscape, as true democracy rises from the state of things’.
Gift of the artist 2005
© Mandy Martin/Copyright Agency, 2024
Mandy Martin (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.
