The Sydney Morning Herald announced the death, at 95, on 16 May 2016, of
Romaldo Giurgola, architect of Australia’s Parliament House, known as ‘the
bunker.’
Italian Romaldo Giurgola (1920-2016) died in his home in Canberra, the
capital of Australia, and the location of the Parliament House he designed. He
also designed buildings in the United States and Italy.
Giurgola, known as Aldo, moved to New York in 1949, when he was 29, to
study at Columbia University in New York. In 1979, while teaching at Columbia
University he was asked if he would be a judge in the competition to design a
new Parliament House in Australia. He declined to be a judge and entered the
competition himself. The competition attracted more than 300 entrants.
With Australian architect, Richard Thorp, Giurgola designed the building so
that people could walk around it and on it – the roof is covered with grass. He
set the design into the low hill in the capital city of Canberra, a short
distance from the Old Parliament House. When he won the competition, he moved,
with his family, to Canberra. He became an Australian citizen in 2000.
The building was finished in 1988 and described as Progressive
Architecture. Although some called it ‘the bunker’ – a reinforced underground
shelter – Giurgola called it a ‘nested’ building and emphasized that it was not
buried, but that every room had daylight.
Last year, the government announced plans to erect an eight-foot high steel
security fence around sections of Parliament House. Giurgola visited Parliament
House to express his concerns, stating that the proposed changes were
offensive.
Image of Romaldo Giurgola by Andrew Sheargold, The Sydney Morning Herald
MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:-
The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends
(2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan
Curse (2009).
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