renzo piano is a famous architect

1. Italian architect
Renzo Piano first
gained success
collaborating with
British
architect Richard
Rogers. The pair
spent the better
part of the 1970s
designing and
building a cultural
center in Paris,
France—the Centre
Georges Pompidou.
It was career-
launching
architecture.
Renzo Piano
Born: September 14, 1937 in Genoa, Italy

2. Training and
Professional Life:
1959-1964: Studied at the Milan Politecnico, where he
taught until 1968 1964: Worked in his father's company
1965-1970: Worked in offices of Louis I. Kahn in Philadelphia and Zygmunt
Stanisław Makowski in London
1971-1978: Partnership with British architect Richard Rogers
1980-present: Renzo Piano Building Workshop

3. Architectural Style:
Renzo Piano's work has been called high-tech and bold postmodernism. His 2006
renovation and expansion of the Morgan Library and Museum shows that he is much
more than one style. The interior is open, light, modern, natural, old and new at the
same time. "Unlike most other architectural stars," writes architecture critic Paul
Goldberger, "Piano has no signature style.
Instead, his work is characterized by a genius for balance and
context....“ The best two words to explain Renzo Piano’s Architecure
are :
ART &SERVICE
Renzo’s work has succeeded in being Humane , intelligent and resourceful
Renzo Piano is often called a "High-Tech" architect because his designs showcase
technological shapes and materials. However, human needs and comfort are at the
center of Piano's designs.
Piano's work is rooted in the classical traditions of his Italian homeland. Piano is
credited Piano with redefining modern and postmodern architecture.
Piano is also celebrated for his landmark examples of energy-efficient green design.
With a living roof and a four-story rainforest, the California Academy of Sciences
claims to be the "world's greenest museum," thanks to the design of Renzo Piano.

4. Design philosphy
World-renowned architect Renzo Piano
says principles of openness, accessibility,
and harmony with nature will guide him on
his newest design project: the Stavros
Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute
building at Johns Hopkins University's
Homewood campus

5. Famous Buildings by Renzo Piano:
1977: Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (with Richard
Rogers)
1990: San Nicola Stadium, Bari, Italy
1990: IRCAM Extension, Institute for Acoustic
Research, Paris, France
1991: Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa, Italy
1992: Columbus International Exposition, Genoa,
Italy 1994: Lingotto Factory Conversion, Turin, Italy
1994: Kansai Airport Terminal, Osaka, Japan
1995: Menil Collection Museum, Houston, Texas
1996: Congress Center and Offices, Lyon,
France
1997: Reconstruction of the Atelier Brancusi, Paris
1998: Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Nouméa, New
Caledonia 2002: Parco della Musica Auditorium,
Rome, Italy 2005: Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern,
Switzerland
2007: New York Times Building, New York City
2008: California Academy of Sciences, San
Francisco, California
2010: Central St. Giles Court, London, United Kingdom
2012: The Shard (London Bridge Tower), London, UK
2015: Whitney Museum of American Art, Meatpacking
District, NYC

6. Kansai International Airport
Terminal Osaka, Japan — 1994

7. Bercy 2
Shopping
Center
Charenton le Pont
Paris, France —
1990

8. Tjibaou
Cultural
Centre,
Nouméa, New
Caledonia —
1998

9. Environment, Congress Center and
Offices Cité Internationale
Lyon, France —1996

10. The Padre Pio Pilgrimage
Church San Giovanni
Rotondo, Italy — 1991

11. The Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Punta Nave, Genoa, Italy — 1991

12. San Nicola
Stadium Bari,
Italy — 1990

13. Lowara Company Offices, Vicenza, Italy
— 1985

14. Potsdamer Platz
Reconstruction, Debis
Office Tower, Berlin,
Germany — 1997

15. Columbus International Exposition, Genoa, Italy
— 1992
Photo

16. POMPIDOU
CENTRE
The "High-tech" Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris revolutionized museum
design. Museums of the past had been elite monuments. In contrast, the
Pompidou was designed as a busy center for social activities and cultural
exchange.
With support beams, duct work, and other functional elements placed on the
exterior of the building, Centre Pompidou in Paris appears to be turned inside
out, revealing its inner workings. Centre Pompidou is often cited as a landmark
example of High-Tech Architecture

17. MENILMUSEUM

18. INTRODUCTION
• In 1972 the de Menils engaged noted architect Louis Kahn, who
had recently completed the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, to
design a museum to house their collection.
• The building site was a 1920s residential enclave, entire blocks of
which they had purchased over the course of several years with the
aim of creating a storage facility and study center for their art.
• Kahn called for removing all of the residential structures and
transforming the entire site into a museum complex with gardens.
• Due to John de Menil’s death in 1973, followed by Kahn’s less than a
year later, the architect’s ambitious plan never came to fruition.
• Dominique de Menil continued to pursue the idea of permanently
housing the family collection in a public museum. Preliminary
schemes were developed with architect Howard Barnstone. Then in
1980 she met the Italian architect Renzo Piano who she collaborated
with excellently.

19. INTRODUCTION
• The Menil Collection, located in Houston,
Texas, USA, refers either to a museum that
houses the private art collection of founders
John de
Menil and Dominique de Menil.
• The Renzo Piano-designed museum
opened to the public in June 1987, has
collection of twentieth-century art,
including over 15,000 paintings,
sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs,
and rare books.

20. DE
S
IG
N
• Unlike the Kahn plan, the building envisioned by Piano—his
first in the United States—would not remake the existing
neighbourhood but rather blend in and harmonize with it.
• The exterior—an understated facade of gray cypress siding, wide
expanses of grass, and white-painted steel—echoes the
surrounding bungalows, all of them painted the same shade of what
has become known as “Menil gray.”
• The building’s dark-stained pine floors, low-slung profile, large
lawn, and surrounding portico (which mimics the deep porches
typical of early Houston homes) further recall the neighbouring
domestic structures.
• Telling Piano what she wanted in very simple but specific terms—a
museum that would look “small on the outside, but be as big as
possible inside”—de Menil got exactly what she wanted; although
the Menil is large, it sits gently in its residential setting, and its
careful proportions and placement engage easily with the nearby
houses.

22. P
L
A
NOFTHEM
U
S
E
U
M

23. SECTION

24. LIGHTING
• De Menil insisted that most of her collection be displayed in natural
light so that visitors could experience art as she did in her home,
enlivened by the subtle changes that occur at different times of the
day or year.
• It was also critical that the works be protected from the harmful
effects of ultraviolet rays.
• Piano, with engineering consultants from Ove Arup and Partners,
made several trips to Houston to measure light intensity and
atmospheric conditions.

27. CA
M
PU
S
• The museum campus has grown to include two
satellite galleries to the main building: Cy
Twombly Gallery and The Dan Flaying Installation at
Richmond Hall, which houses Dominique de Menil's
last commission.
• Two other buildings founded by the de Menils, but now
operating as independent foundations, complete the
campus: The Byzantine Fresco Chapel and the Rothko
Chapel.
• The museum has a library that is open to qualified
researchers by appointment and a bookstore open
during museum hours.

32. NEIGHBOURHOOD
• The neighborhood as a whole has a coordinated feel.
The Menil Foundation began buying homes in the area
in the 1960s and painting them the same shade of gray
over time.
• When the museum building was constructed, it too
was painted "Menil gray".
• Though subtle, the result is a neighborhood that feels
aesthetically unified.
• Currently the surrounding bungalows are used as
additional office space for museum employees, or
rented to individuals or non-profit organizations.

33. S
TR
U
CTU
R
E
• While technology provided the necessary data, it was a trip
to Israel’s Kibbutz Ein Harod with de Menil that provided
Piano with his first inspiration.
• The kibbutz’s architect, Samuel Bickets, had suspended a
screen beneath the museum building’s skylights that
filtered sunlight, which could fill the gallery without directly
striking works of art.
• The second inspiration was Piano’s own sailboat, a model of
which the architect had recently built using ferro-cement.
• Enchanted by the flexibility of this particular material, Piano
designed a wave-shaped “leaf” for the Menil’s roof and
ceiling, which he used along with white steel trusses, both
in the gallery spaces and on the building’s exterior, to unify
the structure.
• The leaves function as a method of controlling light levels
and also as a means of returning air flow.