H+U+D Co-Directors David Brownlee (left) and Eugenie Birch (right) with Alan (center)

This year’s H+U+D Annual Public Lecture featured Alan Greenberger discussing the work and legacy of his mentor, the renowned Italian-American architect and professor, Romaldo “Aldo” Giurgola.

Giurgola moved to Philadelphia in the late 1950s to teach at the University of Pennsylvania where he joined an influential group of architects called “The Philadelphia School” who pushed back against Modernist orthodoxies and as a result made Philadelphia a hotbed of design thinking and innovation in the 1960s.  Giurgola partnered with Ehrman B. Mitchell to form the firm Mitchell/Giurgola. They were responsible for many important projects built in Philadelphia in the run-up to the Bicentennial, including the Penn Mutual tower at 508 Walnut St., the United Way headquarters at 1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and the original Liberty Bell Pavilion on Independence Mall. For 34 years, Greenberger was a practicing architect with Mitchell/Giurgola Architects and its successor, MGA Partners, where he was the design lead on many award winning projects. Greenberger described his time at MGA and his relationship with Giurgola, his mentor and friend. The presentation featured a number of Giurgola’s designs and Greenberger discussed the commonalities among them as well as the need for design that works in context with its surroundings to enhance rather than detract.