RENZO PIANO

Renzo Piano was born into a family of builders in Geneva, Italy in 1937.
His grandfather, his father, four uncles and brother were all contractors and Renzo Piano admits, he should have been one too, but instead chose architecture.

He studied at Milan Polytechnic Architecture School.

After his graduation in 1964 Renzo Piano worked in his father's company and during the time 1965-1970. Renzo Piano worked in offices of Louis I. Kahn in Philadelphia and ZS. Makowski in London. Other important influence Renzo Piano acknowledges, was Pier Luigi Nervi.

Renzo Piano 's first important commission was in 1969 when he design the Italian Industry Pavilion at Expo'70 in Osaka.

The Expo project attracted much favorable attention, including the attention of another young English architect named Richard

Rogers.
The two architects found that they had a great deal in common and when an engineering firm suggested they worked together and enter the international competition for the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris; they did it and won.

Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris

It houses the Bibliothque publique d'information, a vast public library, the Muse National d'Art Moderne which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg.

It is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who decided its creation, and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by then-French President Valry Giscard d'Estaing.

The centre was intended to be a joyful urban machine, a creature that might have come from a Jules Verne book, or an unlikely looking ship in dry dock. It is a double provocation: a challenge to academicism, but also a parody of the technological imagery of our time. To see it as high-tech is misunderstanding. -Renzo Piano

Kansai international airport

(1888-1994) The airport is located on an artificial island in the bay of Osaka. It was built in 36 months by 6000 workers. It is 1.7 km long and can handle 100, 000 passengers per day.

The roof consists of a series of arches whose form and size are determined by research into the dynamic lines of air flow circulating the building

The general structure follows the movement of a wave, and its curves produce the image of a glider resting on the island

The shape of Kansai fits in perfectly with the surrounding environment of water, wind and light.

California Academy of Sciences

(San Francisco)

Aims to be the world's largest eco-friendly public building

On October 7, 2008, the U.S. Green Building Council awarded the Academy a Platinum-level LEED certification.
Points for the coveted LEED certificate are awarded in five key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

The U.S. Green Building Council offers four levels of LEED certificates (Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum). They range from Certified, in which 50% of the points are achieved, to Platinum, in which 80% or more of the points are awarded.
The Academy is now the largest public Platinum-rated building in the world, and also the worlds greenest museum with a total score of 54 points.

1 Recycled materials
Part of the original structure remain in place near the new planetarium. The rest of the building was demolished and recycled. The steel used in construction is also recycled, and shredded blue jeans insulate the walls.

2 Passive climate control

The undulating roof helps guide fresh, cool air into the central piazza and stale, hot air out through high-point vents. This lessens the need for expensive, energywasting airconditioning and ventilation systems.

3 Living Roof
1.7 million native plants insulate the roof, capture rainwater, and provide a 2.5-acre habitat . And that nifty thatch is framed by 60,000 photovoltaic cells along the roof's perimeter.

4 Natural Ilumination
Computer modeling determined optimal locations for windows to maximize illumination of sunlight-hungry coral reef and tropical rain forest installations without overheating the rest of the building.

5 Water Conservation
Ocean water piped in from the Pacific cycles through natural filtration systems for aquarium tanks. Toilets flush with reclaimed water.

Thomson Optronics Factory

(Saint-Quentin 1990)
This plant employs a modular solution, composed of arch shaped base elements. The design allow for a flexible and evolutionary building plan capable of redefining itself with changing requirements.

The building follows the grid of vegetation that surrounds it, becoming an integral part of the landscape.

J.M. Tjibaou cultural centre

(Nouma, New caledonia 1991-1998)
The Centre, entirely devoted to the Kanak culture, lies on a narrow strip of land surrounded by water. Ten pavilions modelled after the shape of traditional kanak huts. Heights varying from 20 to 28 metres, are at the core of the scheme.

Organized in groups of thematic villages, the pavilions are immersed in vegetation, thus expressing the millenary kanak relationship with nature.

The huts are made of iroko wood, combined with steel and glass, and built respecting traditional construction methods according to the most sophisticated engineering studies.

Padre pio pilgrimage church

(S. Giovanni Rotondo, Italy 1991/2004)

The church was designed to receive the increasing number of pilgrims visiting San Giovanni Rotondo. Though it is only 16 metres high, the church has a capacity of 6,500 people.

The structure has a spiral-shaped movement: the dome sweeps down from the Centre towards the precinct in a gesture of welcoming invitation.

The technical challenge of the project lies in the use of local stone as a structural material: the church in fact includes about twenty stone arches arranged in radial fashion holding up the vast roof.

Beyeler Foundation Museum

(Riehen1992-1997)
The museum consistes of four bearing walls, running parallel to the site boundary enclosure.

To give the art its proper value, the choice was made to use zenithal light: a steel framed glass roof with opaque glass north lights. The many layers of the roof deflect the incidence of the sun's rays, creating a diffuse and controlled internal light.

The basic concept underlying this architecture, developed on the basis of the attempt to provide natural light for the artworks exhibited inside the building, is apparent right from the first glance.

A system of glass panels on the glass roof shades the building from direct sun.

The winter garden completing the area in front of the western faade was created without sacrificing any important vertical surfaces, and offers visitors an opportunity to relax and enjoy the lovely view of the surrounding landscape.

Nemo (National Center for Science and

Technology)
(Amsterdam, - 1992/1997)

Surrounded by the sea, the building has the shape of a ships bow lying on the entrance of a road tunnel.
The occupiable roof of the center, with its gentle slope, acts as a public piazza.

Auditorium parco della musica

(Rome, 1994-2002)
Parco della Musica is composed of three separate halls, whose forms are inspired by musical instruments: Santa Cecilia, 2800 seats Sinopoli, 1200 seats Petrassi 750 seats

Positioned around an open-air amphitheatre, the halls look like three enormous "music boxes.

Each concert hall differs from the other in terms of dimension and functions, but they are all characterized by an extreme flexibility and versatility of the space. The interiors are entirely made of cherry-wood, which best resolves acoustic problems.

Zentrum Paul Klee

(Bern, switzerland 1999-2005)
permanent collection concert hall houses temporary exhibitions centre with ateliers for childrens

The shapes of the building recall the curves of the surrounding landscape, thus becoming an integral part of it.

The Center is composed of three hills made of glass and steel. Each hills corresponds to one different function of the centre, and runs through the life of the artist who was a painter, a musician and poet.

P & C Department Sotre

(Cologne, - 1999/2005)
Quite massiva, but sculpted within a curvy shape, this 5-storey building covers an area of 23 000 square metres. 66 Vertical wooden arches, each positioned 2.5 meters apart compose the main structure of the building. .

Central St. Giles Court Mixeduse

(London 2002-2010)
The scheme is composed of complex volumes, which are characteristically chiselled, fragmented and reduced in scale to match the sorroundings buildings.

Each facet is unique, differing in height, orientation, colour and relatioship to natural light. Glass, steel and ceramic are the primary elements of the skin.

The panels consist of 134,000 prefabricated glazed terracotta tiles hung

BANCA POPOLARE DI LODI HEADQUARTER

Located on the site of a former dairy farm, the headquarters for the Banca Popolare di Lodi are an example of urban intervention. It is both a business center an a place for social exchange

The terracotta cladding and the cylindrical structures evoke the sylos typical of the region.

The site with its inner glass-covered piazza, is open to the public.

The scheme consists of bank offices, visitor facilities and an auditorium.

The New York Times building

Located in Times square. Transparent and permeable to people s circulation. This 52-storey building expresses the intrinsic link between the newspaper and the city.

The facades of the tower are a combination of glass curtain walls and a scrim of white ceramic tubes.

This scrim, positioned 61cm from the structure acts as an energy efficient sunscreen.

OBRAS

 Nemo msterdam, Pases Bajos Centro Georges Pompidou (con Richard Rogers), Pars, Francia. 1971-1977 Museo de la Coleccin Menil, Houston, EE UU. 1982-1986 Aeropuerto Internacional de Kansai, Osaka, Japn. 1988-1994

Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Punta Nave, Italia. 1989-1991

Cruceros "Royal Princess" y "Crown Princess", de Princess Cruises. 1989-1991

Centro Cultural Canaco J.M. Tjibaou en Noumea, Nueva Caledonia, Francia. 1991-1998

Iglesia de Peregrinaje Padre Pio, S. Giovanni Rotondo, Italia. 1991-2004 Museo de la Fundacin Beyeler, Basilea, Suiza. 1992-1997 Reforma de la antigua fbrica de Fiat en Lingotto. Reconstruccin de una seccin de la Potsdamer Platz (DaimlerBenz), Berln, Alemania. 1992-2000 Auditorio Parque de la Msica, Roma, Italia. 1994-2002 Ampliacin del High Museum of Art, Atlanta, EE UU. 1999-2005 Maison Herms, Tokio, Japn. 1998-2001 Centro Paul Klee, Berna, Suiza. 1999-2005 Futura sede de The New York Times, Nueva York, Estados Unidos. Nuevo edificio del Whitney Museum of American Art, Nueva York. En construccin. Previsto para 2012.

PREMIOS
1988 Medalla de Oro Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

1990 Premio Kyoto.

1994 Embajador de Buena Voluntad de la Unesco para Arquitectura.

1995 Praemium Imperiale.

1998 Pritzker Architecture Prize. 2002 Medalla de Oro de la UIA.

Platinum LEED green-building certification