The Chatham Press November 2009 Page 17 The Chatham Press November 2009 Page 16

design

By Rich Kraham

Architect George Ranalli lives on HudsonAvenue in Chatham for a few understandablereasons. A Bronx native who also lives in Man-hattan, Ranalli “needed to be near the trafficnoise,” and one would assume the sirens of therescue squad here on Moore Avenue not faraway, “so he could sleep at night.”

That said, he – with wife Anne, son Rocco,and daughter Sofia – also found our country-side a respite from his busy schedule as Deanof the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School ofArchitecture, City College of New York, andhis noted architecture firm – a practice thathas been singled out for its sui generis, one-of-a-kind, designs.

Ada Louise Huxtable, the architecture critic,writing in the Wall Street Journal in May ofthis year, said of Ranalli:

“Obviously, not all architects have beenbuilding condos and skyscrapers; some havebeen working quietly under the celebrity radar in ways and in places where it matters.”

She was writing about a public building,the Saratoga Avenue Community Center inBrooklyn, that defied all the odds. Most publicbuildings she wrote, are done under “tightbudgets, Byzantine bureaucracies, and low bidcontracts guaranteeing bad design.”

The influence of ChathamRanalli was able to buck that trend and createa building that she called “postmodern with-out the bad jokes or superficial historical allusions.”

And believe it or not, Ranalli claims thatChatham’s Cady Hall on Main Street with itsconfiguration of big windows and two storyhall was influential in this design. He also likedthe Masonic Building at Park Row and MainStreet [west side], “the big red brick box withthe brick corbel cornice at the top. It is somassive, bulky and strong looking. I also likethe little red brick building on the corner ofSchool and Hudson Avenue because of all themasonry detail. The town itself is a beautifulcollection of vernacular, masonry, strongbuildings. Of course some of the architectural

RanalliGeorge

Photo by Sofia Ranalli

gems like the train station are even stronger.”Even if you’re not a student of architecture,

you can see some of the details of these build-ings in the Saratoga project pictures on thenext page.

It was through their daughter’s acquain-tances at grammar school that they foundfamilies that had a connection to Chatham.They were invited for a visit, and Ranalli andcompany fell in love with the area.

“I have a trace of memory of Torrice, atown in Italy 60 kilometers south of Rome,that bears an incredible similarity to Chathamin the quality of its people, their warmth andgenerosity, and the physical character of a onestreet hilltown. The general landscape andbeauty of the valley right off the Taconic onRoute 203, is reminiscent,” said Ranalli.

“I love the patchwork of farms and the community buildings, the masonry, the specialphysical beauty of Chatham.”

“We come up here as often as we can, work-ing around our kids’ complex schedules. Wecome virtually every weekend,” he remarked.

The workHuxtable wrote: “The Saratoga Avenue Com-munity Center manages to break just aboutevery deadly rule of conventional public build-ing design . . . he created a building with a distinctive and elegant presence of its own.This is, in sum, real architecture.”

High praise indeed for the man the NewYork Times called “a New York architect’sarchitect.” They were referring more to his status among fellow architects for his crafts-manship and blending of modern and histori-cal traditions than to his roots in the city.

Ranalli received his Bachelors of Archi-tecture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and earned his Masters of Architecture fromthe Graduate School of Design at HarvardUniversity. After graduation Ranalli studiedarchitecture in Europe, focusing on Italy.

Ranalli’s career includes his own practice,George Ranalli, Architect, his architectural hardware line at George Ranalli Designs, and

Above: A design for ahome in theChatham area –unbuilt. Below, asection of thepool house. Theplunge poolroom is done ina green plasterwith pearwood.

fifteen teaching and critic positions at eleveneducational institutions including Columbia,Cooper Union, Harvard, Rhode Island Schoolof Design, Yale, and his current position atCity College of New York.

Now mind you, all these credentials could not keep Ranalli, a real down-to-earth guy,and son Rocco, from the rides and Midway of the Chatham Fair where we caught up with him in September. It was there where webegan a dialogue about his work. And it is, inour estimation, that earthiness that probablygave him the insight to create such a seminalpublic building that serves a much deservedpopulation. Sure, it makes for a great portfoliopiece, news generator, and a valuable mono-graph, but this building works in the area that architecture works best. And it makes noapologies for some of its superb decorativeworkmanship.

Middle ground“I try to find a middle ground between mod-ern architecture’s inability to age – the lack ofwarmth in its material palette – and a broaderarchitectural language.”

Ranalli said his buildings and design workthroughout the world are based on both theclient’s program and the existing site.

According to published information, archi-tecture critic Herbert Muschamp has high-lighted Ranalli’s “display of affection for formsoutside the modern traditions.”

“His ability to convert a school house intomuch praised condos or design a brick NewYork City Public Housing community centerinto a mahogany trimmed, highly detailedacclaimed work shows a facility with transfor-mation that is still of a piece with the worldaround it.”

According to Huxtable, “Mr. Ranalli adheresto the logic of modernist practice, integratingits mechanical, material and structural realitieswith details drawn from earlier sources to create an integral ornament of abstract lineargeometry.”

“His purpose is to move modernism into

an enriched and more deeply referenced style. The building [Saratoga] does what somuch postmodernism of the 1980s failed to do – it reinterprets and transforms history into something completely and satisfyinglycontemporary.”

Ranalli has taken this fresh approach to decoration to create a line of hardware andfurniture, which reveals a synthesis of thehighly decorative and the cleanly modern.These functional objects have become part of the permanent collections of The Metro-politan Museum of Art, the Denver ArtMuseum, and the Indianapolis Museum ofArt.

He has received press mention for works as small as family bathrooms, but is equallyfacile designing large projects, such as theMaster Plan for the City College of New York,or the Student Union Addition at QueensCollege.

Press coverage and critical pieces regardingRanalli’s works are voluminous, includingpieces in The New York Times, Casas Inter-nacional, Architectural Record, Architecture,A+U (Architecture + Urbanism), Domus, TheNew Republic and an ORO Single BuildingSeries book. His work has also appeared onHome and Garden Television.

According to published reports, whileteaching at Yale, Ranalli also held the prestigious William Henry Bishop Chair of Architecture.

Of his own design ethos, Ranalli said:“I have always searched for a way to translate history into a contemporary idiom. To creatework that blended with rather than opposedits environment.”

Through his designs, furniture, and com-pleted buildings, this blend seems apparent.

It is nice to know such unpretentious geniusis around us in Chatham. Hopefully, lookingat the integration of forms and the preciselines in this one Brooklyn building, Chatham-ites will take a fresh look at the spaces andforms around them that in a small way contributed to this great design. �

Architect George Ranalli found Chatham, his second home, twelve years ago. Our countryside reminds him of lands in Torrice, south of Rome, Italy. And our village architecture here influenced his design of a community building in Brooklynthat critics are hailing as one-of-its-kind architecture – in the best tradition.

3 Saratoga photos by Paul Warchol