Renzo Piano is a celebrated designer renowned for his alone attack to plan and his doctrine. He was born into a household of builders and he continued on the tradition of “making things” as he puts it. by planing some award winning & As ; celebrated edifices. including the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. France. the San Nicola Stadium in Bari. Italy. the Kansai International Airport. Osaka. Japan and the Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea. New Caledonia. Renzo’s work is extremely regarded as art. Each edifice is advanced. good elaborate and each designed with a alone attack. Renzo positions light as a “building material” and this is obvious throughout all of his undertakings.

Born in 1937 in Genoa. Italy. Renzo studied at the University of Florence and the Milan Polytechnic. Following his graduation from architecture school in 1964. he worked in his father’s building company where he got the opportunity to plan. under the counsel of Franco Albini. Renzo formed his ain pattern in 1965 before fall ining Richard Rogers in 1971. It was his last coaction with Richard Rogers on the controversial Georges Pompidou Centre. in 1977 that ab initio brought him celebrity. In 1978 Renzo began a long period of coaction with Irish applied scientist Peter Rice. which would bring forth many all right edifices. Renzo so created the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in 1981. with studios in Genoa and Paris. He received the RIBA Gold Medal in 1989 and the esteemed Pritzker Prize in 1998.

Inspirations

Renzo lists the Renaissance designer. Filippo Brunelleschi among his many inspirations. Brunelleschi. who is celebrated for innovations including heavy lifting mechanisms based on the interior workings of a clock and additive position. was a true pioneer and experimenter.

In add-on to his fifteenth century graven image. Renzo pays court to Jean Prouve‚ of France with whom he formed a friendly relationship while working in coaction with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia and Z. S. Makowsky in London. Louis Kahn was regarded as a philosopher among designers. he didn’t have many undertakings ( merely 25 or so ) but he has inspired 100s. His work infused the “International Style” .

Two other of import influences he acknowledges were Buckminster Fuller and Pier Luigi Nervi.

Family

Renzo was born into a household of builders. His gramps. his male parent. four uncles and a brother were all contractors. and he admits. he should hold been one excessively. He was 17 when he approached his male parent with the thought of traveling to architecture school. “Why do you desire to be merely an designer? You can be a builder. ” was his father’s response which has ne’er been forgotten. Renzo provinces that as the chief ground for calling his architecture studio the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. instead than Piano Architects & A ; Associates.

While still analyzing in Milan. Renzo married a miss he had known from school yearss in Genoa. Magda Arduino. They have three kids. two of which have carried on the Piano household tradition. with their boy Matteo going an industrial interior decorator and their girl Lia an designer. Renzo & A ; Magda separated during building of the Georges Pompidou Centre as Magda preferred to be in Genoa. but Renzo was required in Paris.

Renzo met Emilia Rossato when she came to work for him. They were married in 1992 by Jacques Chirac. so the Mayor of Paris who supported the building of the Georges Pompidou Centre through the many crises.

Renzo’s foremost of import committee was in 1969 to plan the Italian Industry Pavilion at Expo ‘70 in Osaka. His late brother. Ermanno. built and installed the marquee and a figure of other undertakings before his premature decease in 1993.

Saint georges Pompidou Centre. completed 1977.

Renzo Piano’s association with Richard Rogers led to many interesting edifices. but it is the Georges Pompidou Centre. in Paris which brought them celebrity. One of his original thoughts for the Centre had been to construct a elephantine upside-down pyramid but his clear belief in functionality and logic led him and Rogers to choose for the lucidity of the elephantine rectangle of a metropolis block.

Initially. all of the functional structural elements of the edifice were colour-coded: green pipes for plumbing. bluish canals are for clime control. electrical wires are encased in yellow. and circulation elements are ruddy. Although in recent redevelopments. this coloring material cryptography has been partly removed. and many of the elements are merely painted white.

During the planning and building phases of the undertaking the Pompidou was really controversial. with assorted tribunal instances and public protests keeping up completion. but it has since become precisely what Piano and Rogers wanted it to be. “a joyful urban machine. ” Despite frequently being described as “High Tech” Renzo gets really irritated if the Pompidou Centre is described as such. Alternatively he prefers it described as “a dual aggravation: a challenge to scholasticism. but besides a lampoon of the technological imagination of our time” .

The edifice itself created over a 100 thousand square metres in the bosom of Paris. devoted to the nonliteral humanistic disciplines. music. industrial design. and literature. In the three decennaries since it opened. over a 200 million people have visited it. averaging more than 25. 000 people per twenty-four hours which shows its overpowering success.

San Nicola Stadium completed 1989.

Renzo Piano and Peter Rice collaborated on the design of the San Nicola Stadium in Bari. Italy which was built for the World Cup. Italia ‘90. The bowl was built of one basic stuff. concrete. The form of the bases and the beams clearly reveals the modularity of the construction. The full oval of the bowl is made up of 26 “petals” . each assembled out of 310 crescent shaped elements. which were prefabricated on site. Each petal is supported by merely four pillars. Although these supports are reasonably monolithic. the good thought out design makes the petals appear to lift above the banked land as if they are drifting. The spreads between the petals let the visible radiation and coloring material of the landscape into the bowl. Normally. concave constructions tend to bring on claustrophobia nevertheless the transparence achieved with the perpendicular cuts reduces this consequence. and contributes to a more relaxed enjoyment of the athletics.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Genoa

The Renzo Piano Building Workshop was built in 1989 on the seashore West of Genoa. Perched on the stones and surrounded by the sea and mountains. Renzo describes this creative activity as “half stone. half ship” . In fact. the topographic point is called Punta Nave. intending Ship Rock. Renzo believes “Creating something is hard plenty. but seting yourself in the right province to make something is even more difficult” and says of this studio. “here I find unagitated. silence and concentration” . Overlooking the Mediterranean and surrounded by beautiful scenery. the puting provides an “inspiring ambience” . Renzo and his brother Ermanno’s house collaborated with UNESCO to construct a works research station and workshop on the same site. UNESCO scientists are now turning and analyzing bamboo. agave and flog in the edifice and the environing lands.

Kansai International Airport. completed 1990.

Before come ining the competition for the Kansai Airport. Renzo. wished to see the site. as is normal process. In this instance it involved a boat trip which led to a minute of embarrassment. as at a certain point on the unfastened sea. one of Renzo’s party asked where the airdrome was to be. merely to be told. “Here. ” Since Osaka had no room for an airdrome. the local governments decided to construct an unreal island for it in the bay. Not a little island either. on completion it would be 15 square kilometers.

Renzo describes the construction as “a losing nexus between land and airplane” as it “spreads over the island like a glider” . At 1. 7 kilometers long. it’s one of the world’s largest edifices and as the terminus caters one hundred 1000 riders per twenty-four hours. it’s besides one of the busiest.

A testament to Renzo’s pursuit for technological and site sensitive design considerations is that during the Kobe temblor of 1995. there was non a individual window glass of broken glass at Kansai. despite being precisely the same distance from the epicenter as Kobe. which suffered terrible harm.

Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea

The Renzo Piano Building Workshop won an international competition in 1991 to plan the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea. a Pacific island district in New Caledonia. The Gallic authorities built this Centre which is named after the late Jean Marie Tjibaou. to record and exhibit the civilization of the Kanak people. Renzo’s construct is a echt small town composed on 10 constructions of different sizes and maps. the largest being every bit tall as a nine narrative edifice. The 10 constructions of the Centre are organized into three small towns: one is devoted to exhibitions ; another is for administrative staff & A ; historiographers ; the 3rd is for originative activities such as dance. picture. sculpture and music. The edifices are. as Piano puts it. “an look of the harmonious relationship with the environment. that is typical of the local civilization. They are curving constructions resembling huts. built out of wooden joists and ribs ; they are containers of an antediluvian visual aspect. whose insides are equipped with all the possibilities offered by modern technology” .

As Colin Amery ( Particular Advisor to the World Monuments Fund ) put it. “there was a existent danger that a western designer could hold presented a strategy that was a kitsch rendition of traditional manners. but Renzo and his co-workers were more than aware of this possible booby trap and it is a testimonial to their attack that their design appears autochthonal while being contemporary” .

Renzo won the competition because he did non get in the islands enforcing his designs and thoughts on the community. He listened to the client’s demands. traditions and thoughts in order to make a individualized design that is sensitive to the delicate and beautiful scene. Renzo provinces “There is ever the enticement to enforce one’s ain design. one’s ain manner of thought or. even worse. one’s ain manner. I believe. alternatively. that a light attack is needed. Light. but without abandoning the obstinacy that enables you to set frontward your ain thoughts whilst being permeable to the thoughts of others” .

Decision

Renzo Piano’s architecture has been described as a “rare melding of art. architecture. and technology in a truly singular synthesis” and he has been compared to Leonardo district attorney Vinci and Michelangelo for his invention. While his designs incorporate the most current engineering. his roots are clearly in the authoritative Italian doctrine and tradition. He is besides intensely concerned with issues of habitableness and sustainable architecture in a invariably altering universe.

Renzo’s designs are the consequence of analysis and research and are the best. practical replies to specific jobs. As Colin Amery said. “there is a sense in all his plants of a job solved” and “He may seek an experiment to work out the job but he will non construct anything that is non an intelligent solution” .

What is Architecture? This is a subject on which Renzo encourages unfastened treatment. In his words he describes architecture as “a service. in the most actual sense of the term. It is an art that produces things that serve a intent. But it is besides a socially unsafe art. because it is an imposed art. You can set down a bad book ; you can avoid listening to bad music ; but you can non lose the ugly tower block opposite your house. And architecture is an ancient profession ; possibly the world’s oldest. a small like runing. fishing. agriculture. researching the seas. These are man’s original activities from which all others stem. Immediately after the hunt for nutrient. we find the hunt for shelter ; at a certain point. adult male was no longer content with the safeties offered by nature and became an architect” .

In my sentiment. Renzo Piano has more to offer than beautiful. purposeful edifices. I believe that his doctrines can be applied to all design subjects. My readings of Renzo’s beliefs are: Embrace engineering. but respect the theories. patterns and traditions of the past. Good design is a brotherhood of engineering and art. Listen to the client’s demands instead than enforcing your ain thoughts. You’re designs should be practical. advanced and effectual. Pay attending to detail. for it’s the finest inside informations that have the longest permanent consequence. Don’t stick to one manner ; treat every undertaking as a new escapade. If you don’t. you risk going bored and will bit by bit free inspiration. Experiment with stuffs and procedures in order to derive an apprehension of what is possible. instead than staying by the bounds imposed by what you already know. or believe you know.