George Ranalli FAIA

George J. Ranalli, FAIA, is an American modernist architect, scholar, curator, and industrial designer based in New York City. A graduate of Pratt Institute and Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Ranalli is a member of the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows.

Early in his career, Ranalli explored buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Louis Kahn, and Carlo Scarpa, engaging in discussions with Scarpa during a visit to his home in Vicenza, Italy. Ranalli's work is positioned at the intersection of neoplasticism, minimalism, and postmodernism. He established his architectural design firm in New York in 1977. Architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable noted that Ranalli's purpose is to move modernism into an enriched and more deeply referenced style.

For more than four decades, Ranalli has developed a diverse portfolio, including civic masterplans, culturally significant projects, private residences, and product designs. Notable commissions include the Saratoga Avenue Community Center in Brooklyn for the New York City Housing Authority, which provided an alternative to typical public architecture. Other New York City projects include the Italian American Museum of New York in Little Italy and the London Towers Terrace apartment building in West Chelsea. Ranalli also completed a restoration and update of The Fashion Center Building, a 23-story Romanesque-Revival structure in Manhattan's Garment District at 525 Seventh Avenue. Architectural Record described Ranalli's career as a Gesamtkunstwerk.

Ranalli founded George Ranalli DESIGNS, creating custom furniture and industrial design objects for commercial distribution. His industrial design work, including door hardware, furniture, and glassware, is recognized as art. Ranalli's furniture designs are part of the permanent collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as private collections worldwide. International exhibitions of his work have been held at the Centre Pompidou, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Museum of Finnish Architecture, XVII Triennale di Milano, and Design Museum in Helsinki.

Ranalli served as a professor of architectural design and visual studies at Yale University School of Architecture & Environmental Design for 23 years. He later served as dean of The City College of New York's Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. Ranalli has also been a visiting professor at institutions including the Boston Architectural Center, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Illinois at Chicago, Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, and Cooper Union. He received the New York Society of Architects' Sidney L. Strauss Award for Outstanding Achievement for the Benefit of the Architectural Profession, an honor previously given to figures such as Ada Louise Huxtable and Robert Moses.

Ranalli's fifth monograph, "In Situ: George Ranalli Works & Projects," published by Oscar Riera Ojeda Publications, documents his work and approach. He has received professional awards from the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, New York Society of Architects, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Architectural League of New York, as well as the Stanford White Award. Yale University also granted Ranalli a Master of Arts degree, honoris causa. With a career spanning decades of built work, scholarship, and design innovation, Ranalli is recognized as a distinctive and intellectually rigorous voice in American architecture.