Michela Sgalambro.
Michela Sgalambro, 34
Project architect at Fogarty Finger
Michela Sgalambro decided that she wanted to start her architecture career in America after spending a semester in an unlikely U.S. destination: Arkansas.
“I’ve always been obsessed with international experience and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, was the only option,” said the architect, who was raised in Rome and attended Roma Tre University. “And I was like, wow, I love America.”
Before graduating, Sgalambro volunteered for an architecture competition. She ended up meeting her future husband, who was studying abroad in Italy and one of the landscape architects on her team.
Her father, an architect who restored historic buildings in Rome, always told her that architecture was “a difficult life.” But she liked to wake up on Saturdays and draw Hadrian’s Villa, or whatever project he happened to be working on.
After finishing her master’s in architecture in Rome, Sgalambro ended up in New York. She worked at Ole Sondresen Architect and BKSK Architects before landing at Fogarty Finger in 2016.
She recently completed the renovation of 5 Bryant Park, which involved removing a false front from the entryway of the building to reveal a mid-century mosaic mural by Max Spivak. Her team reclad the facade with dark metal panels in an effort to highlight the mural’s bright primary colors and shapes. The elevator lobby was covered in black-stained wood, and a new coffee shop was installed in the main entrance to the lobby, which has a clean, white oak pallet and white marble flooring.
Sgalambro is also working on the renovation of the top floors of 444 Madison Avenue, a 42-story Art Deco office tower in Midtown. For the design, “we took inspiration from St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” Sgalambro said. “The beautiful, green copper roofs were so inspiring for us. We brought the green into our renovation.”
Her team is also developing a pre-built office at Pier 17. Prior to these developments, her largest project was the white-and-terracotta renovation of a penthouse office at Vornado Realty’s 90 Park Avenue.
