Piano, Renzo
Piano, Renzo
(rĕnt`sō pyä`nō), 1937–, Italian architect, b. Genoa. Piano attended architecture school at Milan Polytechnic, graduating in 1964. The prolific Piano has been lauded for responding to the needs of each building site rather than cleaving to a single architectural style and has also been praised for his command of engineering technology. He worked with architects Louis I. KahnKahn, Louis Isadore, 1901–74, American architect, b. Estonia. He and his family moved to Philadelphia in 1905, and he later studied at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. From the 1920s through World War II, Kahn worked on numerous housing projects including Carver Court (1944),
..... Click the link for more information. and Z. S. Makowsky from 1965 to 1970, and came to world attention when he and Richard RogersRogers, Richard, Baron Rogers of Riverside,
1933–, British architect, b. Florence, Italy, studied Architectural Association, London (1954–59), Yale (M.Arch., 1962). With Norman Foster and two other architects he cofounded (1963) Team 4, his first firm.
..... Click the link for more information. designed the BeaubourgBeaubourg
, popular name for the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture
, museum in Paris, France; the popular name is derived from the district in which it is located.
..... Click the link for more information. (1977), the revolutionary "inside-out" museum in Paris. Piano's subsequent buildings include the Menil Museum, Houston (1981–86), known particularly for the leaflike ferroconcrete louvers that filter the light from its transparent roof; the vast Kansai Air Terminal, Osaka (1994); the long, low, elegantly simple Beyeler Foundation museum, Riehen, Switzerland (1997); and the Tjibaou Cultural Center, Nouméa, New Caledonia (1998), featuring wooden staves reminiscent of local Kanak huts. Among his 21st-century projects are the Parco della Musica, Rome, Italy (2002), a complex of concert halls; the undulating Paul Klee Center, Bern, Switzerland (2005); the Pierpont Morgan LibraryPierpont Morgan Library,
originally the private library of J. Pierpont Morgan, in 1924 made a public institution by his son J. P. Morgan as a memorial to his father (see Morgan, family). The library is privately supported; it is located at Madison Ave. and 36th St.
..... Click the link for more information. addition (2006) and the New York Times Building (2007), both in New York City; the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, an addition to the Los Angeles County Museum of ArtLos Angeles County Museum of Art,
Los Angeles, Calif. The original museum, the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, opened in 1913. Among its important patrons was William Randolph Hearst, whose enormous collection, largely donated from 1945 to 1955, brought the
..... Click the link for more information. (2008); the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco (2008), capped by a "green" roof with skylights; the glass-roofed modern wing of the Art Institute of ChicagoArt Institute of Chicago,
museum and art school, in Grant Park, facing Michigan Ave. It was incorporated in 1879; George Armour was the first president. Since 1893 the Institute has been housed in its present building, designed in the classical Beaux-Arts style by the Boston
..... Click the link for more information. (2009); the Shard skyscraper, London (2012); the terraced, light-filled Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American Art,
in New York City, founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney with a core group of 700 artworks, many from her own collection. The museum was an outgrowth of the Whitney Studio (1914–18), the Whitney Studio Club (1918–28), and the
..... Click the link for more information. , New York City (2015); with Richard Rogers, the National Opera and National Library, Athens, Greece (2016), which share a canopy roof; and the Botín arts center, Santander, Spain (2017), raised on pillars and perched on the edge of Santander Bay. Piano was awarded the Pritzker PrizePritzker Prize,
officially The Pritzker Architecture Prize
, award for excellence in architecture, given annually since 1979. Largely modeled on the Nobel Prize, it is the premier architectural award in the United States and is named for the family that founded the
..... Click the link for more information. in 1998.
Bibliography
See his On Tour with Renzo Piano (2004); P. Buchanan, Renzo Piano Building Workshop (4 vol., 1999–2003); studies by A. Cuito, ed. (1989), P. Jodidio (2005), F. Irace (2007), and V. Newhouse (2007).
Piano, Renzo
(1937–)
