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Feb.20,2005 -Feb.27,2005 |
Magical Buildings of Renzo Piano
Genoese architect achieves spectacular results with unique and awe-inspiring constructions
By Mark Curtis
Originally Published: 2003-11-02
When style is forced to become a trademark, a signature, a personal characteristic, then it also becomes a cage. The effort to be recognizable at any cost, to put your hallmark on things, kills the architect and his or her freedom to develop. The mark of recognition lies in the acceptance of the challenge. And then, yes, it does become identifiable: but by a method, not by a trademark".
The thoughtful speaker is Renzo Piano, the most acclaimed Italian architect of his generation and one of a handful of architects working internationally - along with the likes of Calatrava, Foster, Gehry and Libeskind - who big name clients turn to when seeking architecture that will command world-wide attention.
Despite his words, though, Piano has cemented a reputation for architecture as spectacle since he partnered with British architect Richard Rogers in the early 1970s to create the visually arresting Centre Pompidou in Paris. What has truly set Piano apart from his contemporaries, however, is the 66-year-old Genoese architect's uncanny ability to combine new technologies with an attention to detail at the level of master architects of old. New technologies alone can't cut it, suggests Piano, noting that "innovation in process does not necessarily entail high technology in construction. There is very little today that can bear comparison to the structural and formal research that went into a 15th century church." American architecture critic Herbert Muschamp says Piano "shares with Michelangelo, da Vinci and Brunelleschi the belief that art and science exist within the same cultural continuum."
Piano's father, grandfather, brother and four uncles were all building contractors and the acclaimed architect notes this influence on his main Genoa studio. "We not only design things there, but we also make things and test them. Keeping some of the action together with the conception makes me feel a little less like a traitor to my family". His firm also maintains an office in Paris.
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