Hard not to regard a development of such signal importance for our architec- ture, a cause for celebration, an occasion long-awaited and a bit of surprise, given the architect’s stature. That we know Ranalli’s work so well already, is in part a byproduct of its easy dissemination over the ether. Like a number of his peers, George figures importantly in the architectural firmament because his work is widely published and exceptionally well regarded in a representational culture that simply elides the conceptual and the literal. In the case of Ranalli, the profusion of realized interiors, objects, additions and other products of his supple and lapidary hand have perhaps persuaded us that many of the major works – designs that grow gracefully from a long rich line of his sensibility – are simply there.

That so much of this work consists of un-built projects might not be an issue for many, but it is for Ranalli. This is not to say that his production isn’t visionary, that it can’t teach from the position of the image. Obviously, there are depths to his representations that can explain, argue and intoxicate. For years, Ranalli has been meticulously developing an architectural idiom that is at once singular and connected, rich in detail and spatiality, exquisitely elegant, and ever engaged in the vital intercourse of the social. For many, this is simply architecture, full stop. Is it enough? Not for George, and not for us.

Unlike so much architecture, seemingly designed for the page, Ranalli’s work, lives larger in the concrete. It may be that the qualities that sustain and inspire this work are simply out of sync with the immaterial feeling of so much of our contemporary architecture with its uniformity of detail, fetish for non-