In Situ sums up the theoretical position embodied in the work of New York architect George Ranalli. Over the past thirty-two years, George Ranalli has worked on projects in New York, other states in the US, and across the world that have involved large-scale urban design, houses in the landscape, additions, renovations of major landmark buildings and new constructions. George Ranalli is internationally celebrated and published for his work in historic settings, National Register Historic Landmark buildings and settings with rich design and craft traditions. In Situ is his operational strategy in the design of these new buildings and additions to these complexes, providing contemporary and creative structures that also blend in seamlessly with their historic environments. The projects have developed a rich craft and design vocabulary, which links this work to the origins and roots of the longer craft tradition in design and architecture.

• Introduction by Michael Sorkin
• Interview by Susan Szenasy
• Main Text by George Ranalli
• Essays by Joseph Giovannini, Paul Goldberger, Ada Louise Huxtable, Herbert Muschamp and Anthony Vidler
• Edited by Oscar Riera Ojeda

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Contributors Biographies

George Ranalli, FAIA is an American architect based in New York. A graduate of Pratt Institute (’72 B.Arch.) and Harvard Graduate School of Design (’74 M.Arch.), Mr. Ranalli is known for his innovative design practice, and coherent, elegant work, at every scale, attuned to history and surroundings. Since 1977, George Ranalli Architect has set the standard of care for the practice and profession of architecture. For 40-years, Mr. Ranalli has created a diverse body of work, ranging from civic masterplans and cultural projects to private residences and product design. Mr. Ranalli is recognized in hundreds of publications, gallery and museum exhibitions, and collections, around the world, and he has received dozens of awards for excellence. A rigorous scholar, Mr. Ranalli has advanced the profession through systematic teaching, research, and practice; this month, issuing his fifth book, In Situ, Oscar Riera Ojeda Publications. An academic leader, Mr. Ranalli taught for 25-years at fine schools, most notably, a professor of architecture and college fellow at Yale University. After educating thousands of students, Mr. Ranalli took on the Deanship at City College; presiding for the past 16-years over a renaissance of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. According to the renowned historian of architecture William J.R. Curtis, Mr. Ranalli has “set in place a value system for teaching the art of architecture.”

Michael Sorkin received his architectural training at Harvard and MIT and holds degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia. He is the principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio in New York City. He is founding president of Terreform, a non-profit organization dedicated to research and urban intervention. He is president of the Institute for Urban Design; Distinguished Professor of Architecture and the Director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at The City College of New York (where he has taught since 2000), Professor of Urbanism and Director of the Institute of Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1993 to 2000), and he has been a professor at numerous schools of architecture. He lectures around the world, is the author of several hundred articles, and is currently a contributing editor at Architectural Record.

Joseph Giovannini heads Giovannini Associates, a design firm based in New York and Los Angeles. He holds a Masters in Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale and Master of Arts degree in French Language and Literature from La Sorbonne, Paris, Middlebury College Program. He has taught advanced and graduate studios at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, UCLA’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, the University of Southern Californias School of Architecture, and at the University of Innsbruck.

Paul Goldberger has been the architecture critic at The New Yorker since July 1997, writing about architecture, design, and urbanism. He has served as special consultant to a number of major institutions such as Morgan Library in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, holds honorary doctoral degrees from the Pratt Institute in New York, the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, and the New York School of Interior Design and has also won many prestigious awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. 

Anthony Vidler, a historian, architecture critic, and curator, is dean and professor of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. Trained in architecture at Cambridge University in England, with a PhD in history and theory from TU Delft, Vidler was a member of the faculty of the Princeton University School of Architecture from 1965 to 1993, serving as the Chair of the PhD Committee, and Director of the Program in European Cultural Studies. His publications include Histories of the Immediate Present (MIT Press, 2008), and James Frazer Stirling: Notes from the Archive (Yale University Press, 2010).

Susan S. Szenasy. In 1986 was named chief editor of Metropolis, the New York City-based magazine of architecture, culture, and design. During her seventeen years as editor-in-chief, the magazine has gained international recognition and won numerous awards. Susan’s training in design journalism was on the job. Beginning with Interiors magazine, she rose from a junior position of editorial assistant to senior editor; then she was named chief editor of Residential Interiors, the short-lived offspring of Interiors. Susan is the author of several books on design, including The Home and Light. She holds a MA in Modern European History from Rutgers University.