According the American weekly news magazine Time, the Italian architect and engineer Renzo Piano is one of the most influential personalities of the world. His works are present in many countries in the world, his activity is intense ...

and many are his projects realized or in the planning stage. Renzo Piano is a brilliant face of Italian creativity. Successful architect, he has a very long experience behind him and a passion for his business. «That of the architect - he said - is a craft of adventure: a frontier trade, poised between art and science. On the border between invention and memory, suspended between the courage of modernity and the prudence of tradition. The architect makes the most beautiful job in the world because on a small planet where everything has already been discovered, designing is still one of the greatest possible adventures».
At only 34 years with Richard Rogers he won the international competition for the construction of the Beaubourg, the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris. From the collaboration with Rogers, with whom he founded the Piano & Rogers Studio in London, he moved to the one with the engineer Peter Rice and so the Atelier Piano & Rice was founded. Then he created the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), for which a hundred experts worked in the two offices in Milan and Paris
Long is the list of projects drafted by the Plan. In addition to the Beaubourg, in Paris he designed the renovation of the Schlumberger factories, the reconstruction of the Brancusi atelier, the new headquarters of Virgin Continental Europe, the dwellings in the Rue de Meaux; in France he also worked for the Cité Internationale de Lyon, the Hotel and the Casino of the Cité Internationale. His are the projects of the Menil Collection in Houston in the United States, the Hermés Tower in Tokyo and the Kansai Airport in Osaka in Japan, the Nemo Museum of Science and Technology in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the restoration of the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin in Germany, the Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center in Nouméa in New Caledonia, the Aurora Place towers in Sydney in Australia, the restoration of the ancient arsenals of Chania in Crete and the moat of the ancient city in Rhodes in Greece. Among the works in Italy we mention the restructuring of the Lingotto in Turin, the wind tunnel at Ferrari in Maranello, the San Nicola football stadium in Bari, the reorganization of the Porto Antico area in Genoa, the church of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo (Foggia), the Nicolò Paganini Auditorium in Parma, the Meridiana Center in Lecco. Many others are the designs of the Genoese architect, whose art has also been extended to theatrical sets such as the one for the opera "Prometheus" in Venice and the projects for cruise ships for the P&O Usa.
Many others are the designs of the "master of lightness", even if there are also criticisms for his futuristic projects. Of particular prestige is the Pilitzer Prize, awarded to him in 1998 by former US President Bill Clinton, but Renzo Piano is also Knight of the Legion of Honor, the distinguished service Gold Medal of culture and art, Knight of the Grand Cross Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Honorary Academician of the Academy of Design Arts in Florence, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Architecture Biennale; he obtained the Praemium Imperiale and the Kyoto Prize in Japan, the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in Great Britain, the Sonning Prize in Denmark, the AIA Gold Medal in Washington. He was also appointed Unesco's ambassador for architecture.
Renzo Piano was born in Genoa-Pegli in 1937. He graduated from Polytechnic of Milan and his first experiences were with well-known architects such as Franco Albini, Marco Zanuso, Louis Kahn and Makowskj. With reference to his teacher Jean Prouvé, he developed an innovative spatial concept and devoted himself to the development of space-shell structures. His activity rose in the news in the international press, not just specialized, and in 1969 he got a chance to take part in Italian industry pavilion at the Osaka Expo. Then came the time of the great worldwide launch with the Beaubourg project in Paris. (F.d'A.)

In the picture: Nemo Museum in Amsterdam and, in the box, Renzo Piano (click on the image to enlarge it)