Parliament House architect leaves a legacy

Parliament House architect leaves a legacyIndustry leaders pay tribute to Dr Romaldo Giurgola AO, the architect of Parliament House in Canberra, who leaves a lasting legacy for all Australians after passing away last week aged 95. Speaking at the Property Leaders’ Summit Dinner on Monday night in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Property Council President Mark Steinert paid tribute to Giurgola’s brilliance, and said his legacy served as a reminder that the property industry is “all part of something bigger than ourselves”.Born in Italy in 1920, Giurgola moved to New York in 1949. He received a master’s degree from Colombia University and subsequently served as the university’s head in the department of architecture.In 1980, Giurgola was invited to judge the international design competition for Australia’s new Parliament House. He declined, choosing to enter the competition himself. His design was selected from a field of 330 entries.Working with fellow architect Richard Thorp, Giurgola inspired the judges with his plan for a pyramidal building that enabled visitors to explore not only its interior, but its grass-covered roofs. His building, he maintained, would embody the idea of democratic participation.In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in 1999, he said his vision was to design a building “rising out of the landscape as true democracy rises from the natural state of things.”Giurgola became an Australian citizen in 2000, and once said he was “biologically Italian but psychologically Australian”. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1989.Parliament House won top honours at the Australian Institute of Architects awards in 1988, as well as the Australian Centenary Medal in 2001.National president of the Australian Institute of Architects, Ken Maher, says Giurgola was an architect of “immense talent and international stature” and left a “prodigious body of influential work”.Of his chosen profession, Giurgola himself once said that an “architect gives form to a building, and people give that building their own meaning”.