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George Ranalli FAIA      

American Architect

George Ranalli, FAIA is an American architect based in New York City. A graduate of Pratt Institute (’72 B.Arch.) and Harvard Graduate School of Design (’74 M.Arch.), Mr. Ranalli is known for innovative, coherent, elegant design at every scale attuned to history and surroundings. Since 1977, he has contributed writing and architecture projects to numerous publications. His work has been exhibited and collected by galleries and museums around the world. Mr. Ranalli has delivered public lectures on a diversity of architecture and art topics for the past 40-years. He recently issued his fifth monograph, "In Situ: George Ranalli Works & Projects" (2015), Oscar Riera Ojeda Publications. He has taught at many fine schools, including a 23-year post as professor of architectural design and visual studies at Yale University, where he also served in the fellowship of Morse College, and he been appointed visiting professor at Rhode Island School of Design, University of Chicago Circle Campus, Cooper Union. Over a 40-year career, George Ranalli has produced a diverse body of work ranging from civic and institutional projects to residential and industrial design and he has advanced the practice of architecture through systematic research and educational leadership

Speech Topics


architectural analytics, interior domestic architecture, architecture in the public realm, architecture: in situ. architecture: context and innovation

News


Q&A: George Ranalli
The high point of touring a Milanese furniture factory was seeing a table made of hefty layers of plywood underneath a gorgeous ebony top. The Chief Designer leading the tour explained it was made by an Italian architect whom we had most likely never heard. The table was about to be shipped to the owner. Shortly afterward, a colleague pointed out the work of Carol Scarpa in Verona, and that marked my introduction to innovative contemporary design woven into the fabric of an ancient city. The work was nothing less than a revelation. I was much younger than Scarpa, but I trusted that my eyes had found something very special. With the encouragement of a friend, I arranged to visit Scarpa’s studio in Vincenza. When I arrive, I had expected to find a prestigious architecture studio. Instead, Scarpa was picking grapes in the garden in a simple black smock looking like the quintessential European artist. What’s more, a modernist architect was living in a16th-century carriage house, and the office was even more of a surprise! Located in the cellar, it was more like a catacomb. The drafting were desks placed were between spindly stone columns. Although the room was exceptionally beautiful, I kept saying to myself, “We are in the basement of an old carriage house?” Scarpa and I spent the whole day together. We continued talking well into the evening. When Scarpa's wife kindly invited me for dinner, I found myself sitting at the same beautiful ebony and wood table I had admired a couple of weeks earlier at the Bernini factory in Milan.
ARCHITECTURE VIEW; A Stitch in Time: Renewing a Swatch Of Urban Fabric By Herbert Muschamp Published: March 6, 1994
GEORGE RANALLI COMPLETED a project a few months ago that glows with the keen sensitivity to form, materials and detail that has made this New York "architect's architect" an esteemed figure in his profession.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/a-new-neighbor-for-a-brooklyn-housing-project/comment-page-1/
"...The center is situated on a corner of the complex’s existing courtyard in a way that frames the rest of the courtyard and links it with a lush public park nearby, Mr. Ranalli said. As for the building, he said, his goal was to make the building feel like part of the complex while also distinguishing itself. 'It’s a dual idea of making it feel exceptional, but at the same time making it feel comfortable, like it fits in,' he said..."
Valentine 2 Chair by George Ranalli at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Valentine #2" Chair; Designer: George Ranalli (American, born, New York, 1946). Manufacturer: Environments Plus, Inc., Date: 1988, Medium: SURELL™ solid surfacing material. Dimensions: H.32-1/4, W.20, D.23-1/2 inches (81.9 x 50.8 x59.7 cm.) Seat H. 17-3/4 inches (45.1 cm.) Classification: Furniture-Wood Credit Line: Gift of Formica Corporation, 1990 Accession Number: 1990.306
Italian America Date published: January 1, 2011
GEORGE RANALLI, award-winning New York architect has received the 2010 Sidney L. Strauss Memorial Award from the New York Society of Architects. Since 1950, the award has been given to important figures in architecture and urbanism, including powerbroker Robert Moses (1976), who built modern New York, and Robert A.M. Stern (2004) who was instrumental in helping American society become more aware of rich architectural history. Ranalli is best-known for modernist forms, craftsmanship, and artful use of light.
For a Museum's Chief, History at Home By PENELOPE GREEN
"...The renovation was mostly about tidying up and painting (the stairs are bleached white), with the exception of the two bathrooms upstairs. These are like high-end dioramas on loan from a boutique hotel by Andre Balazs In fact, Ms. Mirrer asked George Ranalli, to design them. They are luxurious, modernist pods hidden away in a mock-Tudor home..."
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REVIEW: Frank Lloyd Wright at the Milwaukee Art Museum By Mary Louise Schumacher of the Journal Sentinel
"...A striking, plywood model of the “The Living City” made by architect George Ranalli and an animation created by graduate students at Harvard University make all the difference here. They enliven Wright’s vision..."
David Brussat: Rec center's 'third way' in Brooklyn
A couple of years ago the world of classical architecture learned that an extraordinarily non-canonical building had won a Stanford White Award from the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s headquarters...
Brilliant architecture can rescue even Basingstoke George Ranalli's marvellous work in Brooklyn should be a lesson to Britain's architects and planners, writes Simon Heffer.
"...The local people are so proud of the place, and love what it means to them so much, that they look after it and ensure that it does not fit in with the wider character of the area. Their young people take these attitudes home with them..."
Midtown Manhattan Wouldn’t Be the Same ‘Times Square, 1984,’ at the Skyscraper Museum By JOSEPH GIOVANNINI
"The architect George Ranalli of New York also proposed a serious, buildable structure, a totemic tower featuring timeless archetypal forms, including a sphere nested in the body of the building, with stepped pyramidal forms rising at the top like ears, all hosting a series of theaters that reinforced the theatrical nature of the neighborhood."
Breaking All the Rules With New York's Public-Building Design By Ada Louise Huxtable
"...And so a building as good as the Saratoga Avenue Community Center in Brownsville, Brooklyn, designed by New York architect George Ranalli and built by the New York City Housing Authority, better known for its bottom-line public housing projects, deserves to have its presence shouted from the rooftops as a seriously fine demonstration of the art of architecture, and as an example of the radically revised standards that are being successfully implemented under a new city policy."
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