Renzo Piano

That magic by which he saw buildings rise out of nowhere was where his love for construction began.

Text by Eloisa Guarracino

Illustrationsby

RENZO PIANO

Illustrations by Ángela León

Text by Eloisa Guarracino

Piccoli MAXXI

To those who want to invent the architecture of the future

Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, “the city of wind and iron,” as one of his favorite poets once said.

His father was a builder and when Renzo was a child he often went with him to construction sites. That magic by which he saw buildings rise out of nowhere was where his love for construction began.

Over time, this passion became an art and he became one of the most important architects in the world.

After studying at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Renzo left for London.

He was in his early thirties when he and his friend Richard Rogers won a competition that was destined to change both of their lives.

More than designing a classic museum, they had the task of designing a modern cultural center in the heart of Paris, in a space once used as a parking lot. Renzo and Richard imagined a kind of spaceship parked right there among the elegant old buildings of the Beaubourg neighborhood. The result was a building similar to a mechanical structure, assembled in pieces like a giant game, six stories high and spacious inside like series of squares.

The two architects had a brilliant idea: move all the building’s functional elements outside, in plain sight, as if they were works of art on display. Columns and beams, joined by sturdy steel clips, along with large colored pipes outline the façade while an escalator zigzags through it all, like lightning carrying visitors to the top.

It was a real revolution at the time, which changed the world of museums from then on.

The transparent spaces and showing on the outside everything that is not usually seen, including visitors as small dots that walk up and down the structure, made the Pompidou Center a symbol of modern architecture.

Renzo’s favorite materials are glass and steel... And it is incredible to think about it, but even light and water are elements used in his work, making it possible to create shapes in space which are light, vibrant and full of poetry.

Like in The Shard, a shiny glass skyscraper built south of the Thames. A true vertical city, which narrows upwards until it disappears among the clouds of the London sky.

But his true passion is water: the sea, boats and even sand castles. Even for those a certain technique is needed!

Just as he taught his children, it is necessary to: study the terrain; observe the waves; dig in the right spot; calculate the angles and slope.

Once upon a time, he even built an airport on the water. It was the first floating airport in the world, on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, built in just over three years thanks to workers as agile as acrobats.

According to Renzo, knowing the places where projects come to life is essential to create buildings that are truly capable of improving life and can bring among the people that special beauty that can save the world.

With this conviction he designed the children’s hospital in Entebbe, Uganda, overlooking Lake Victoria and surrounded by hundreds of trees.

Beauty and nature can heal: even Gino Strada was sure of this. He was the doctor who at all costs wanted to entrust the project to an architect accustomed to building in the most beautiful places in the world. Here Renzo employed traditional techniques, such as the use of local raw dirt for the walls, as well as innovative elements like mounting solar panels on the building in order to obtain useful energy.

He did the same in New Caledonia, where he designed a cultural center in the Pacific Ocean. Renzo studied the landscape and traditions of the area and ended

up creating curved wooden structures, similar to huts, that were light but solid enough to withstand the strong winds of the sea.

Another great passion of Renzo is music: the lightest and most invisible of the arts.The Music Park in Rome is a complex consisting of an outdoor amphitheater and three rooms designed to resemble large musical instruments in which sounds echo in space according to precise calculations. From above, the complex looks like three large beetles with shiny shells, while inside the ceiling is similar to a turtle shell.

It is a real sound factory, where some of the most excellent music in the world is produced, performed and listened to!

In his city of Genoa, on a hill in Punta Nave, he created one of his own studios, an authentic workshop of creativity accessible via an open-air elevator that climbs up the hill.

Here, surrounded by plants, with a view of the sea and elevated to the height of seagulls, Renzo spends time with his team, absorbed in designing and drawing with his legendary green pen.

And precisely due to his commitment in this regard Renzo was appointed Senator of the Italian Republic. With a group of young architects, he has promised to improve the country by repairing cities and small towns through solutions in harmony with the places and their inhabitants.

Among the latest projects, in his beloved Genoa, there is the long San Giorgio Bridge which is similar to a ship that sails lightly on mighty columns above the Polcevera River Valley.

Lightweight,thebridgeglidesthroughthecityofwindandiron,inharmonywiththe elementsoflightandthesea.Itremindsusofgreatexplorerswhohavesetouton anadventurelikeRenzo,insearchofamorebeautifulworldtobeimaginedandbuilt.

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Piccoli MAXXI

Text

Eloisa Guarracino

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Ángela León

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Translated by Jonathan Brys Bibee

Printed in Italy by Arti Grafiche Castello, Viadana (MN), November 2022

Printed on Fedrigoni Paper Arena White Smooth

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for the text © 2022 Eloisa Guarracino for the illustrations © 2022 Ángela León for the book © 2022 Fondazione MAXXI for the book © 2022 RI RAUM Italic Bücher, Grafik und Design GmbH All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

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