ARCHITECTURE:Renzo Piano-The Art of Making Buildings
Born into a family of Italian builders, Renzo Piano places great importance on the crafting of elegant structures that embody a sense of lightness. Designing buildings “piece by piece”, Piano’s practice makes deft use of form, material and engineering to achieve a precise yet poetic elegance. He has a command of the entire process, from the structural systems to individual building components, designed for optimum technical performance as well as aesthetic and haptic qualities.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Royal Academy of Arts Archive
The exhibition “Renzo Piano: The Art of Making Buildings” offers an overview of the architect’s practice through sixteen of his most significant projects, dating from his early career when he was experimenting with innovative structural systems, to the signature buildings of the present day. Highlights include Centre Pompidou, Paris (1971), Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Nouméa (1998), The New York Times Building (2007), The Shard, London (2012), Jérôme Seydoux Pathé Foundation, Paris (2014) and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015). Rarely seen archival material, models, photographs and drawings reveal the process behind the conception and realisation of Piano’s best known buildings. For example, on display is one of the original models made during the design process for the Menil Collection in Houston (1986), showing how Piano and his team rigorously explored creative ways to bring natural light into the galleries, creating spaces that would be ideal for viewing art. Other highlights include the white ceramic rods from the 1:1 mock-up of The New York Times Building, produced to test their scale, surface and reflectivity, as well as the original competition drawings for the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea. There is a focus on the architect himself through 32 photographs by Gianni Berengo Gardin and a specially commissioned film by Thomas Riedelsheimer highlighting Piano’s personal sensibilities and attitude to architecture. At the heart of the exhibition is an imagined ‘Island’, a specially designed sculptural installation designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), which brings together nearly 100 of Piano’s projects. Renzo Piano was born in Genoa in 1937 into a family of builders. While studying at Politecnico of Milan University, he worked in the office of Franco Albini. In 1970, he set up the Piano & Rogers office in London together with Richard Rogers, with whom he won the competition for the Centre Pompidou. He subsequently moved to Paris. Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano were in their thirties when they saw off competition from 680 other architectural teams to win the high-profile job to design Paris’s new contemporary arts centre. The project, which was contentious at its opening in 1977, has gone on to become one of the world’s most significant and loved modern buildings. “I knew Renzo as a friend, before I worked with him, though we had so much in common that we soon decided to collaborate. We had no work but two unemployed partners were as good as one”, recalls Rogers. From the late 1970s to the 1990s, he worked with the engineer Peter Rice, sharing the Atelier Piano & Rice from 1977 to 1981. In 1981, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop was established, now comprising of 150 staff split between offices in Paris and Genoa. In 2004 he founded the Renzo Piano Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of the architectural profession through educational programs and activities. The new headquarters was established in Punta Nave (Genoa), in June 2008. In September 2013 Renzo Piano was appointed senator for life by the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and in May 2014 he received a Columbia University Honorary Degree.
Info: Curators: Kate Goodwin, Drue Heinz and Renzo Piano with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, Duration: 15/9/18-20/1/19, Days & Hours: Mon-Thu & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Fri 10:00-22:00, www.royalacademy.org.uk
