Romaldo Giurgola was born in Rome in 1920. After completing his undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Rome in 1949 he was awarded a Fullbright Fellowship to continue at Columbia University where he graduated summa cum laude with an architecture degree in 1951. From 1954, he was a professor at Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia, before becoming chair of the Columbia architectural department in 1966. While teaching at the University of Pennsylvania during the 1950’s he founded Mitchell Giurgola Architects with Ehrman B. Mitchell.
The firm won in national competitions such as the AIA National Competition in Washington, DC and Boston City Hall and significant institutional and urban projects followed. He also taught at Penn among his colleagues, Louis Khan, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Ian McHarg, loosely called the Philadelphia School. In 1967 Giurgola was named Chair of the Department of Architecture at Columbia University GSAPP and moved to New York where he opened an office for Mitchell Giurgola. Aldo was active in both offices and in 1978 drew both offices together to develop an entry for the Parliament House Design Competition.
After winning the competition with Ric Thorp, a native Australian as a member of the team, architects from both US offices relocated to Canberra to work together with Australian architects and engineers. Over the ensuing years, Aldo reduced his involvement in the US practice to devote himself full-time to Parliament and the Australian practice.Romaldo Giurgola moved to Australia in the 1980s. Giurgola retired from the firm in 1990. He adopted Australian citizenship in 2000.
Mitchell/Giurgola designed Whitaker College (Bldg. E25) and the Health Services Building (Bldg. E23) at MIT. Other designs by Giurgola and include the Wright Brothers Memorial Visitor Center, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina; United Fund Headquarters Building, Philadelphia; Lang Music Building, Swarthmore College; Sherman Fairchild Center, Columbia University; INA Tower, Philadelphia; Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasília, Brazil; Penn Mutual Tower, Philadelphia; and Parliament House, Canberra, Australia. He was awarded the Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects, and the Gold Medal from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.
