3 observations and an interivew from the Renzo Piano Building Workshop

3 observations and an interview from the Renzo Piano Building Workshop

**Printed at the Building Workshop 2

3 observations and an interview from the Renzo Piano Building Workshop Stephan Anton van Eeden Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University in New York City written and compiled 28/02/18 -- 03/08/18 Renzo Piano Building Workshop Via P. Paolo Rubens 29 - 16158 Genova - Italy Tel. (39).010.61711 - Fax (39).010.6171350

3

4

Digital Redrawing of original site plan of the building workshop 5

6 M

A

R

E

L

I

G

U

R

E

A note on the approach to this book Instead of a fixed object, this book is imagined as an archive of a process that references both past, present and future work. One that shows its first synthesis in the form of a text, original drawings, diagrams, archival documents and iconic sketches, photos, an interview and then cataloguing and collecting. Different representations both digital and analogue are bound together in one volume. The book is an open object. Pages can taken out, edited, rearranged to find new congruences and inconsistencies between them.

7

Renzo Piano Building Workshop is an international architectural practice based in Genova with practices in Paris and New York.

While the breadth, variety and body of work produced over its 40 year history is immense, the approach of the studio has remained consistent in its philosophy — “piece by piece” —an obsession engrained in the daily work of the individual architects, translating through the scales to the larger vision of Renzo himself.

In early 2018, I had the opportunity to travel and work in the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genova living in Italy as part of a six-month internship program organized between Columbia University and the Renzo Piano Foundation.

As an intern, I joined a team and played a part in every phase of the work: design, making, experimentation, obsession, and visiting the construction of an active worksite.

This document is not a collection of final work produced by myself —work that is already found within the DNA (both built and unbuilt) of the projects themselves. Rather this document, like the ‘good’ architecture practiced at RPBW attempts to provide something new. A reframing, reconsideration of an existing condition.

Meeting Renzo Piano for the first time, he encouraged us to “steal” as much as we can from 8

the experience. My theft is is three observations and an interview -with senior associate and longtime Piano friend Shunji Ishida, taken during the course of the internship on the work, method and process of the workshop.

Observation 1 An approach to work and workplace Observation 2 An approach to the use of section and mock-up to imagine space Observation 3 An approach to the constructive blueprint

9

Yet how to begin to know or understand Renzo?

It is essential to talk to him in his office out Genova. Office is hardly the word. On a grey January day, the sea was neither gentle or beguiling, rather warning that it should not be taken for granted. Imagine the intoxicating effect of a vibrant Mediterranean light flooding the work areas of the workshop. Imagine working there.

—John Tusa 10

The building workshop and foundation A view from the sea 11

The surrounding territory of the building workshop in Vesima 12

13

Observation 1 An approach to work and workplace Renzo Piano started his career as a rebel against the architectural establishment with the Pompidou Centre. But my interest in Renzo began at the office in Genova, the building workshop. The studio and its glass funicular embodies so many of the characteristics of the work, philosophy and the processes that I found inside. It leads me to ask the following questions: Is the studio itself a metaphor for the work of RPBW? And ultimately, what is the relation between the place of work and the work produced? These are questions I continually asked myself during the short time at the building workshop.

The glass funicular Like everyone who visits or works in the building workshop, their first interaction is the transparent all-glass funicular that rises some 70 meters from the sea. It is a journey that lasts two minutes and thirty three seconds and it is the only way to reach the office (other than the 400 steps that run alongside). During the construction of the building workshop the funicular was critical to transporting building materials up and down to the worksite. Back then, it was a simple platform. The final form is only a little different, now a platform with an all 14

The building workshop, a relation between sea and sky connected by a funicular 15

glass enclosure and a top shade for the summer months.

The experience of my work inside the building workshop starts and ends at the bottom of the funicular. The fascination with the funicular is both its drama and subtlety. It operates as a meditation between sea and sky and the public and private. The sea, the edge of the Mediterranean, the sky at the side of the Genovese mountains. The public consisting of the free Foundation Renzo Piano (inside an old palazzo) and one of the few public beaches in the area. The private --the studio, garden and farmhouse.

The glass funicular forces one to approach the studio slowly. Its slowness changing the speed and setting the rhythm for the ritual of the day.

It prepares you to work. The glass funicular is a condenser, the place of first interaction with colleagues. Sometimes it is a moment of privacy to enjoy the sky and view. The glass funicular is a transformative device, a link between the poetic and the technological found in so many of Renzo’s project.

While the views from the funicular can be overwhelming, it has a focused intent, always looking outward towards the horizon of the sea.

The work of the building workshop is not inward or referential. Rather the funicular encourages dreaming outward for projects all over the world.

However the horizons line is not constant. Its 16

N

A workshop that sits high up on on a Ligurian hill accessed by a funicular

17

Arrving at the door of the building workshop 18

The building workshop built into the side of a hill 19

length constantly shortening and lengthening.

The same gesture of the compression and expansion of the height of the studio roof is found horizontally. At first its length is short during the steep portion of the ascent. The line slowly lengthens as the slope flattens to match the slope of the building workshop roof. Finally, as you approach the studio, it shortens again.

The funicular itself follows the arc of a storyline.

Your view rotates perpendicular to look straight through the length of the longest portion of the studio.

At the Building Workshop Located high on a hillside above the Mediterranean on the edge of the city of Genova, the building workshop is both a home and workplace. Constructed to the side of a old farmhouse on territory owned by the Piano family, the building consists of a series of tiered levels of workspace. These tiers are embedded into the side of the mountain and united by a single element —a louvred glass roof to control the overhead light.

The stepped spaces hold work tables and conversation. Like John Andrew’s Gund Hall at Harvard, the tiers produce separate dynamic work environments but are united towards one 20

90 9.

+6

90 2.

+7 70 6.

+6 50 3.

+6 31 8.

+5

12

9.

+1 0

.2

3 +1

0 .0 +0

The building workshop cut section. From the Mediterranean the building lies 72.90m above sea level 21

Much has been written on the subject of architect’s houses, very little on the other hand about their offices. Domestic space is considered to be an autobiographical declaration by the architect, whereas his or her office is mainly regarded as a project workshop, a neutral space.

Yet nothing paints a more accurate portrait of the architect than his office. Work is carried out in the studio, of course, but clients are seen there too; the studio becomes the medium through which the architect shows his public face, his manifesto.

—Fulvio Irace 22

ultimate goal, the production of architecture.

Yet at the building workshop, the work space feels intimate and personal. It is not a factory or machine. The views experienced on arriving with the funicular, inside the studio is blocked by the louvres of the roof, the sea only visible through a narrow gap at the bottom. Although you can work on your own, you can reach across the space, speak across the floors, or follow the line of the roof to peek to another person’s desk.

Each tier has a different relation in height to the roof. Some are compressed by its slope while others are expanded. Wide desks are open to each other to encourage dialogue. They have space to work and custom drafting boards that fit over the desk to draw using the parallel line.

Although computers are present, they seem to take their place as tools rather than the drivers for the production of drawing. Although it is a building made of glass, the remaining walls are filled with drawings and three dimensional relief models of elevations and sections pinned up. A collection of books on a bookcase stretches the entire length of the main tier.

The primary typological reference for the studio is the greenhouse. It reminds me of recent work by Lacaton and Vassal or the studio/house of Frei Otto in Stuttgart. But instead of using the typology as an inexpensive technological answer for a socially based practice (as in the case of L+V), the building workshop greenhouse 23

The personal space of the desk at the building workshop 24

Peeking over the work of others at the building workshop. A dynamic environment united under one roof

25

The technical meets the poetic inside the glass funicular 26

is vibrant, lush and brings in the luxurious Mediterranean light. At the building workshop, the utilitarian greenhouse seems totally appropriate, not a technological reference to an artificial climate or a modernist Miesian cue to lightness and minimalism, but rather a reference to the territory. The previous structure on the site was a greenhouse for Genovese basil. The use of glass, louvres and sunshade rather than driven by technology, are poetic and mediate a relationship between sea, sky and garden.

The building workshop is attached to an existing small farmhouse which is also the home of Renzo. The building feels like an extension of the home. Work/life inside has a domestic or monastic rhythm. Routine that includes both work, enjoying and eating together. Indeed, the building workshop operates like a family, the idea of domesticity carried over from a previous studio in Genova Pegli. After completing the Pompidou Centre from the Paris studio, the first small studio in Genova was also a workshop at the bottom of a family villa in a garden.

Out of necessity, lunch is served together in the cafeteria, where plans for the evening or the weekend are compared. Food is local dishes found in the area. Fruit is always available but also coffee. Group photos are taken together when someone leaves the office and is posted on the wall.

As with the work of the studio, the building 27

workshop has matured over time. Some elements have changed, been replaced and constantly improved. The “piece by piece” philosophy used for its construction is also carried through its use as the container for the ideas from those privileged enough to work inside.

Observation 2 Section and Mock Up to Imagine Space Even a cursory look through iconic drawings and models from the building workshop, you see the importance of the section as the primary way to imagine (generate ideas and conversation) and to analyze (confirm and represent) project.

While the plan gives a global view of a building and forces the imagining of volume, the section is the opposite -it represents a moment and fixes a volume. Sometimes the section can defy gravity, but at the building workshop it gives an understanding of a project’s materials, structure, and tectonic logic. It can simultaneously reveal a project’s neighboring urban context (the outside), the envelope and its internal structure, and interior material quality (the inside). It shows the use of layering, a necessity for the negotiation between the outside and the inside.

The emergence of the section comes from the early fifteenth century as an analytical tool to 28

Except for the predominance of section over plan and the magical top-lit ambience inside (the first studio-workshop that Renzo built for himself in Genova was also top-lit, like so many of his buildings) this fairly modest structure is not what some might immediately associate with RPBW. The only conspicuous technological elements are the solar-cell controlled louvres (now removed). Although devoid of technological exhibitionism, the building exemplifies the evolving architectural ideals. —Peter Buchanan.

29

Sectional sketches by Renzo used imagine and define projects 30

“The most dangerous thing is the rightness of the scale. If you design a building then discover errors of scale when you are constructing it, it is impossible to rectify the errors. So, it is imperative to study the component parts first, pursuing your investigations in great depth. This is why the laboratory was born, where we make models to a scale of 1:1. The only two ways of avoiding errors are: investigate the component parts and build a mental hologram.”

—Renzo Piano 31

The mock-up is more like a section of the building, a deliberately disconcerting section for being composed despite the habitual laws of gravity -heavy materials on top of transparent materials without any obvious structural logic‌ But this perception also lets the imagination that takes hold of the object come into play. We are no longer in the conceptual thinking of the project, which requires a certain perspective.

The mock-up takes place at the junction of two contexts: the ideal one of the project design and the concrete one of the site. It is a small object but it enables a lot of fine tuning between these two vast contexts. It condenses an architectural image of our future building at the same time as it generates reflections. —Atelier Bruther from G2 publication 32

depict Roman ruins. Only later did the section progressively become generative for architectural practice, in the works of Palladio, BoullĂŠe or Viollet-le-Duc. But perhaps for the building workshop, the insistence on section is linked to its ability to negotiate and fix the scale. A vertical cut, combined with the representation of people, identifies scale and proportion. The necessity of the rightness of scale translates not only into the use of section in drawing but into the use of models not as tools of free association or experimentation but as mock-ups.

Although the mock-up infers a 1:1 scale, it is also an attitude towards model-making, the obsession with the ability of the modeled component to work both technically and aesthetically --the beauty of the piece. Indeed, this approach and interest in the mock-up has become a renew methodology for young architectural offices that attempt to move away from ephemeral digitally driven practices.

Observation 3 An approach to the constructive blueprint The third observation at the building workshop is the use of blueprint as a representative form.

In the history of construction, a blueprint 33

+19.12 +13.20

+0.00

34 6.24m 5.67m 5.34m 6.10m 5.69m 5.85m 5.32m 5.44m 5.63m

14.43m 11.67m 9.68m 8.21m

10.47m 19.29m

20.33m 15.02m 14.30m 14.27m 11.06m 13.36m 11.79m 18.29m 20.93m 10.14m

34.08m 32.55m 31.45m 30.34m 28.20m

47.84m

46.24m

58.77m 58.19m

60.35m

62.91m

60.35m 60.35m 62.94m

55.02m 56.97m

55.60m

53.29m

51.64m

60.35m 60.35m 60.35m 57.41m 60.35m 56.15m 54.09m 60.35m 52.56m 59.29m 57.46m 59.36m 60.35m 57.40m 58.36m 60.35m 54.44m

40.55m

40.55m

38.90m

35.52m 34.69m 32.77m

30.84m

44.01m 40.55m

68.52m

69.83m 70.06m 69.16m 69.16m

14.92m 10.11m 9.47m 8.07m 8.06m 8.06m 8.06m 8.05m 22.17m 8.06m 15.70m 8.05m 18.77m 17.29m 14.74m 7.31m 19.48m 13.88m 18.77m 24.99m

22.29m

49.56m

34.57m 30.83m 27.90m

+58.31 51.39m

39.63m

51.90m

+69.90

60.35m 60.35m 60.35m

56.34m

+72.90

+63.50 +66.70

35

63.60m

80.42m 69.01m

An new blueprint, diagram of a foldable screen 36

is a reproduction of a technical drawing, an architectural plan, or engineering design, using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets.

The process was used in the production of copies, reproduction and facsimile in construction, manufacturing and industry.

At the building workshop, “blueprint� drawings do not use the mechanical photographic process but are printed. They are pinned up next to the colored drawings of the energy plans and sections. Often the blueprints communicate the technical constructive quality of the projects in contrast to the atmospheric quality of the energy drawings. Sometimes they literally become the base for a physical extrusion of a detail in model form.

For me, my fascination with the blueprint lies in its strong link to constructive drawings and to its history as a medium of reproduction not merely as a graphic device. Yet the extent to which I understand the implications of its use at the building workshop is not fully worked out. As a response and to better understand the medium, I used the blueprint to interpret my own experience with drawing. For two months I was able to work on the exhibition, I still believe in miracles, featuring the private collection of the Selvaag Museum in Oslo and works highlighting the design process and execution of

37

the Renzo Piano building there. In this careful process of conceiving of an exhibition which is itself an additional layer of reflection on the original design- I was able actively participate in building models, drawing, imagining, and further my understanding of the construction and conception of a building in the way it is understood and represented.

My interpretation took on its own layer, a large scale blueprint drawing that was shown when the other students visited the building workshop and foundation. The drawing not only incorporates the work completed, but by its creation can extrapolate new meanings and connections. The following are 20 excerpts from the drawing.

38

Large-scale blueprint drawing set over a A1 size panel 39

40

Large-scale blueprint drawing set over a A1 size panel 41

96°

.02 512 AKT SJ 2 m² 2,

.

510 EIS 6 H 7 m² 3,

AV

.01 517 GER² LA 2 m 6.

R

G IN TY TS -U AV

GR LA

E ÅD MR SO G .01 LLIN 516 TSTI ² U ,3 m 23 EQ F

1 00

.14 692 x: - 1.54 8 1 y:

.01 .01 01 511 04.A PU

1 6.1

E

0

H=

S O BU AR ....(TW E N Y DIA AMIL AF AM

0

22 5 0

E

E

EQ

5 6,7

H=

E

EQ

EQ

10.7070

S AR "

BY TONE E E S S L KY ME LUC A J E "TH

E

m

EQ

,75 +6

EQ

+

50

N " ED

DE RÅ OM

IED FR SS E LE PLE TO 29

GS .05 LIN 516 STIL m² UT 00.8 1

L WA "B

1 20

.02 511 O ² BR ,6 m 16

114° .03 512 AKT SJ 9 m² 2,

E

EQ

3

.58 697 x: - 93.38 1 y:

E

E

E

42

Antony Gormley "EDGE II" 2000

Ugo Rondinone "MOONRISE EAST NOVEMBER" 2006 + 6.70

NE

D

AB NT

ÅP

EN T

TIO UC

D RO

INT

INE AL IGN ED

EQ

S AN EV .."

R .

E LK OOM DR E B m ,75 Y +S6) O PH OT RA G PH O OT PH .04 ING N A 516 STILL² RIC UT ,2 m E M 95 ON S) OS ST OTO E R OT L H E G H P G D P E EG O AN IN DL EDD IAM D (TW S HIT L LE -W N L W I K A S W TIT EV LAC UN KER 9 B S EQ F R EQ L WA RIE O RIO EQ EQ E SE INTEEQ E OQF

200 0

24 5

00 32

E

E

0

1 80

E

0

plan

0 2.6

E

01

H=

T ES EL Z W OD AN T" M R F AL "S P E Q

0

EQ

Y LE 1 EL R 1 E K ULA K I C M NTI LE .62 Q 686 E x: - 9.01 0 2 y:

400

EQ

2

EL AV ,P LE

TRA EN

400

5 6.9 H=

K TI 00 UN 32 84 " 79.

6 0 2 x: .

03 y: 2 .33 6 E = NC H

0 270 0 0 35

,75 +6

100.404 H=

4400

2

3600 (BEAM MODULE)

3000

ROOF PROFILE VARIABLE SEE DETAIL

E

T FIRS

PLAN R O FL O

1:100

70

°

100

5900

1250

3600

100

1250

6100

C

TYPE

EXHIBITION TABLE43 1:20

0

O

180

975

N M

.60 671 x: - 2.65 4 y: 2

0

300

44

0

L

D

1:10

0

AA' SEC TI O N SEC

ND LEGE POINT E CEILING G IN HANG MEZZANIN R UNDE OINT A ING P H DAT K HANG T WIT TRAC IN O P HTING ING N LIG HANG O N T OIN SITIO ING P LE P O HANG L C AB E E T ING S HANG

E LS L N PAN IO IT IB R OO EXH ND FL GROU EA L TYP PANE E L TYP PANE

C SE

MEZZANINE CEILING + 5.60 m

' BBEC S

IAL T R PA 1:2

SE .

RIZ O H

N IO T C

45

3600 (BEAM MODULE)

3000

VARIABLE

ROOF PROFILE VARIABLE SEE DETAIL

4

°

5900

100

4000

4250

3

250

100

1250

3600

38°

1250

6100

EXHIBITION TABLE

46 TYPE A 200 8 403

6300

6545

EQ

EQ

1000

3600

850

3200

850

6000

1:20

850

C

TYPE

1500

70

0

850

975

0

100

IABL

E

0

E

1

2

Q

Gro +0.7und flo 5 m or

705

8

300

P

VAR

DE TA IL

AX ON

OM E

TR IC

7080 850

850

6950

NT S

K

U

B'

AX O

First floor +6.75 m

47

EE

MOD

FACADE MODEL 1:50

15°

ROOF PROFILE VARIABLE SEE DETAIL

3

BLE VARIA

2

0 25000

) 6 mm (diam S ABLE E END EL C T TH T STE NERS A S U -C HOLE N AND PRE TENSIO TED OLA NNECTIO WITH H AS O E WIT IONER C OFIL S R N P TE R ME EL C FRA STE ARED FO AIN T. P PRE STEMEN WOOD M ADJU TO THE ME D FRA FIXE CED STEEL R FO H REIN ING WIT E DEN X ER TH WOO ABLE FI S UND NS C XED OFILE TIO FOR TE FI ILLA LE PR L PLA HE OSC ANG TEE T S E IZ IM SIBLE R) POS R TO MIN EIGHT) G W COLO O FLO N AL HITE SAMPLIN ITIO N SS (W (ADD GLO RMED O OOD H: D W E CONFI IS TE N FI TO B PAIN MATT S 25/30% S GLO

1 00 42500

00 40000 20000 0

11000 00 90000 0

OOR

E 25000

0 45000

E FL ANIN MEZZ m + 6.75

47000 00

U

20000 0

49000 00

10000 00

50000 0

48

K

Antony Gormley "EDGE II" 2000

3550

3

3550

2

25000 0

4150

1

1:4

DET A IL SEC

K

2750

U

CC'

1850

00

50000 0

E

12

13

14

15

16

CC' SECTION SEC

1:100

49

O D

EE

O P

1:

50

M

FF

EE

DD

CC

BB

13

14

15

16

17

29

AA

14

BB

15

CC

16

DD

EE

FF

PT IO

N

2

Franz West "SPALT" 2003

00

:1

13

EE

ELV

IO OPT NTS

N3 51

E

FRANZ WEST "SINNLOS"

1971

5E1.02 RESEPSJON / LOUNGE 105.7 m²

RONDIN "No 149"

DOUGLAS GORDON "I STILL BELIEVE IN MIRACLES"

FRANZ WE "COOL BO

+ 0,75m

1971

+ 2,60m

EQ

2800

E

FRANZ WEST "KUGEL" E

GR O

1:10

0

UND

FL O

1

plan

5U6.01 UTSTILLINGSOMRÅDE 533 m² AA 403 '

OR

PLA N

1850

00

LAS (......

R SE O O E FP DE R TA OF IL ILE

VAR IABL E

AA 403 '

45 2000

°

Anish Kapoor "UNTITLED" 1997

1500

0

1040

Paul McCarty "WHITE SNOW CAKE" 2011

1040

TION SEC 1000

52 1400 /240 0

0

2200

1800 /280

VA R

IA B

0

OF T HOU G HT)

EQ

MURAKAMI TBC

REED - 472

1800

2900

SAMARAS - HE

REED - 601

1800

FISCHLI & W EISS - FLOW ER FISCHLI & W EISS - BLUM EN

3000

WILSON - NO RTH CORRID OR

2800

LEVEL PRO

1800

2890

9

ELIASSON - GLASS SHEETS 2750

EQ

2370

MEZZANINE

ED 6 AITKEN - CO NNECTING

1798

OPIE - UNTITL

AD 98

1800

PROJECTION

1800

- TW WILLIAMS - CR AC

ED RUSCHA

2550 SHERMAN 323 SLOMINSKY - LEBHALF

CEILING LIG HT TRACK

3050

6620

TYPE B 200 8 404

RUFF - STER N

3500 TILLMANS - FR EISHWIMMER 1800 SERRA - SOLID EINARSSON 23 - OUR RIVAL THE RASCAL OPIE - UNTITL ED 10

TYPE A 200 8 403

2800

EQ

330

EQ

LASK E (THE R FUTU RE

CLOCKS AND CLOUDS

3973

D NA TUR E) 2800

RØDLAND - Ø (PHOTO) BOURGEOIS - UNTITLED (2 WORKS OF ART) D

1840

L IVER ASKER S(ELA) W AN 3900

1800

3380 AITKEN - PLEA SE BOURGEOIS - UNTITLED (VERTICAL W ORK)

EST OOKS"

3400

TAIN UN 4500

- STATIC IV AUERBACH STATIC III

900

7100

BL E

EQ

SEC BB'

SKER ...UN CER

SEC AA'

1800

EQ 2000

AUERBACH

NONE " EQ

D

ELIASSON - PLYHEDRON LAMP JECTION

KIRKEBY "INVENTORY XI"

53

025 251

.43 645 x: - 7.17 2 y: 2

42 00 255 1125 56

.01 TED 515 RKS m² VE0.56 6

+5

730 38

.40 510 APP ² TR , 0 m 14

250 0 122 720

490

.41 510 USE² SL 5 m 7.

490 250

B

795

5x x 79

200

24 3 22 12 5 0 2 62 4 2 7 39 82 38 92 37 2 36 30 35 31 32 33 34

33°

250

3020 2040

GEN AL ER 250

E 0 350 0 252

EQ

TAV 35

0 106

25

20

OLO

FAC

CIATA

020

0 25 25 0

VO

LO

O TT TE

250

TA

TAV

OLO

MOSTR

A

1220 720

870

450 250

100 20 100

H

.28 =6

490

1560 2540

490

00

ND LEGE POINT E CEILING IN EZZAN POINT DATA NGING K WITH TRAC OINT P G HTING IG L NGIN N T ON

0 72 20 12

IBI EXH

00

0 10

490

10

0 49

EQ

0 27 0

15

54

490

75°

E Y RT MIN CA D MC MON DIA

EQ

100

1220

LO 820

ISS K" WE RIC LI & D - B H E C FIS TITL "UN EQ

10020

720

20

VO

H

.34 =8

0 49

100

TA

F

100

GEND LS L E PANE N IO IT EXHIB D FLOOR N GROU EA L TYP PANE EB L TYP PANE

D 5 16

,00

SEC TI O

1:10 0

N

250

SEC

LO LA ND

720 122 0

TA VO SC AP

250

E

490

100 20

840

0

254 0

156

490

NT

AA'

OSITI G POI B LE P ANGIN EL CA E T S ING HANG

A' ER S FIR OR O L TF RS E P PE IVE T C

S

P

0 100 470

55

84

°

5E0.40 TRAPP 14.5m² F

1422

Tauba Auerbach (1981- ) Static IV 2008

SEC CC'

I AN ZZ ME

NE

Tauba Auerbach (1981- ) Static IV 2008 C-print on archiv al grade paper 151 x 105.01 (framed) cm Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP

Torbjørn Rødland (1970- ) Ø

C-print on alum inium, framed 110 x 40 cm Ed. no 2 of 5 + 1 AP

255

2605

Q

EL E

P

D

INT.

1:10

0

32

ELE

1000

8932

IN T.

3

C-print on arch ival grade pape r (framed) 151 x 105.01 cm Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP

FF

G R O UND NTS

VE

4

Franz West "KUGEL" 2005 *future location PER

FLO

OR

PER S P ECT I

56

17

SLUSE 2.07 m²

7695

EQ

37

3654

3654

EQ N IO CT

36

35

1938

450

3654

EQ 3654

EQ 3654

40 39

PR

E OJ

38

EL EV

35

34

Gro +0.7und floor 5m

0 1090 9805

3650

3654

° 84

A

300 890 EL

54

41

3654

LE V A TION

70

1000

57

EL E

0 1:10

75

B

INT.

44 43

58

° 88

650

O 185

8320

4850

EflQoor First 5 m +6.7

400

EQ

or nd flo Grou5 m +0.7

1000

INT.

EQ

9805

P

N ATIO ELEV

B

300 8 90

1000

EQ

1274

4

59

Q

562

2.35

0

SEC DD'

2.05

2.55

FF

BB

CAN O

N TS

PY V ARIA TIO N

S

EM) SYST W NGING SCRE M12 JECT HA (PRO TUBE KLER SPRIN TING EXHIS W SCRE HEAD UND M8 RO

ING EXIST

EXIST

E CABL

ING

TRAC

TR LIGHT

K

ACK

L PL STEE APED 4 mm) "C" SH200x70x (dim.

ATE

) . 6 mm (diam OCKED BLE L CA AD BL STEE ONE HE WITH

S CRO ' A A K

U

E

SEC

16

1850

AT 60 IO N

2950

17

Loiuse Bourgeois "EYES" 1997

1:2

0

EQ

2800

E

FRANZ WEST "KUGEL" E

GR O

1:10 0

UND

FLO

AA 403 '

OR

P LA N

R SE OO E FP DE R TA OF IL

VAR IABL

E

AA 403 '

45 2000

°

Anish Kapoor "UNTITLED" 1997

Paul McCarty "WHITE SNOW CAKE" 2011 1040

plan

5U6.01 UTSTILLINGSOMRÅDE 533 m²

1500 0

00

N 1040

IO ECT S S S

1000

1400 /240

0

0

2200

1800 /280

1000

TY

PE

250

500

A

/2800

EX H

1:2

0

GR + 0 OUN .75 D m FLO

IBI TIO N

OR

450

1800

PA NE

61

L

Palazzo Fabbiani which houses the foundation and apartments 62

An Interview On July 19th, I had the opportunity to interview Shunji Ishida, longtime associate and personal friend of Renzo Piano inside the studio. Shunji is a mythic character in the studio, with a camera in-hand he now documents the daily life of the workshop. It is a new obsession.

To discover something about the building workshop, it was important to go to one of its sources -one that has seen everything and forgotten nothing. So I went to talk with Shunji.

63

How long have you been at RPBW? I started with Piano Rodgers in 1972 after they won the competition for Centre Pompidou.

I left Japan in 1969 on an architecture tour starting in Italy going north and ended in London and I decided to stay to look for a job. I tried to find work in London and found work at Arup Associates, an experiment at the time that was organized in multi-disciplinary groups, with architects and engineers working together. I was fortunate because my group was next to Structure Group 3 which was headed by Peter Rice and Ted Happold. My group leader introduced me to Peter Rice.

After two years, I remembered the nice time I had in Italy, my wife and I enrolled a language school in Perugia and we drove through France.

We packed our bags into our Volkswagen, but as we were driving across France the car suddenly gave up. It needed a week to repair. And so we accept an invitation from a Swiss friend in Genova who had just started working with Renzo, to stay at his apartment. One evening I was introduced to Renzo who took a look at my work.

Renzo then said to me: “Shunji, why do you want to study Italian? Wouldn’t you prefer to learn French?” He had just won the Pompidou Centre competition. When our car was ready, I turned it around we went back to Paris.

64

Q/ How many people where working for Renzo then in Paris?

At that time maybe 8-10 people all with different personalities. At the time the French architecture was really academic and part of the beaux arts tradition. Even with the construction of the Pompidou, it was difficult to continue in the French context. So Renzo created the Piano Rice Associates in Genova. The experimentation to integrate the structure, engineering and architecture, it was something we wanted to continue.

After the Pompidou was finished, Renzo asked me “So, Shunji, I am going back to Italy are you still interested in learning Italian?� as if only six days had passed, and not six years. Soon after we moved to Genova. In 1977 I started to working in the small studio in Pegli that was next to the house. I did not speak any Italian, but Renzo organized a place for us to stay in the family apartment. At the start, Renzo spent time with family and he always invited us to join. We learnt the Italian way of life. One weekends we traveled to the new case study house in San Luca. It was very fortunate for us, it was as if we were part of the family.

Q/ You have spoken about key figures, persons, in the history of the studio and in a way they are essential to understand the path the studio has 65

taken. Do you think these figures are important to any practice in architecture?

Very important. For me as well as Renzo.

For example when Renzo and Rodgers were partners, they wanted to do the competition for Chelsea stadium with Frei Otto, who was too busy, but suggested instead to work with an English engineer, Ted Happold. It was Happold who told them they should enter the competition for the Pompidou Centre. In the early days of the studio in Genova (the one in Pegli) there was a lot of resistance to Renzo even after the Pompidou. Nonetheless, it was with the assistance and encouragement of Peter Rice (and the partnership with Piano-Rice Associates) that we managed to create to some interesting things at the time and we dreamt up projects almost from nothing.

Q/ The studio has been called many different names over time. But the name Building Workshop now carries special significance.

What is the conception of this name for the studio, and is it central to the ethos or approach of the studio?

Even In Italy, Renzo was considered an infant terrible. There was a strong bias for an the academic way of thinking both theoretically and historically. Manfredo Tafuri was very 66

Piano-Rice Associates Pegli workshop at the bottom of a garden 67

Ligurian landscape. Tiers of argicultural land on the steep slopes that face the Mediterranean Sea.

68

The original greenhouse on the site of the building workshop

69

influential at the time and Renzo was almost not considered an architect. He was ignored, even if he had begun to gain a reputation thanks to the Pompidou. I remember Bruno Zevi saying to Renzo, “You have to work with space! There was no space in your buildings!”

But Renzo wanted to stay away for this academic way and imagined building as something constructed “piece by piece”. The name building workshop first came from this desire to separate from the establishment. Renzo also came from a line of builders, which his family wanted him to enter but he wanted to be an architect.

When Renzo first went to the University in Florence, he was interested in Brunelleschi rather than Alberti. In the way to invent, to invent the instruments to build, but in also the bottega system, the renaissance style of passing constructive knowledge between teacher and student. In 1996, Renzo was invited to the workshop of the reconstruction of the Ise Shrine in Japan. A way to pass down the craftsmanship through the act of building. It was long process over many years.

So for the term building workshop, the building part is to do with the legacy of construction in the family and a desire to separate from the establishment and the workshop part a fascination with the bottega system. The name of the internship program here comes from that 70

idea. On many occasions, he was invited to teach in universities but instead of going to the school to teach he decided to invite the student to come work instead in the studio.

Q/ So do you think that the word workshop then is an active term? Does it point to a methodology, a process of negotiating the space between a craft and technology?

I think there is some truth to that. Craft is caring for the detail, but technology can be the methodology for doing a craft. How can the technological expression not just be a technology but beautiful at the same time. The idea of “piece by piece�. When a piece is beautiful it is not only about how it looks but about the way it works and if it works very well, on it own but also part of a system.

Q/ The use of the section is an important device in the drawings of Renzo. Is the section critical to understand this architecture? It is different than other architects, for example in the work of Kazuyo Sejima which is plan-based. What does the section bring to the quality of the space?

It is not only the section, the plan is also important! But we use the section because it is an easy way to understand the scale. With the plan 71

This sort of barn at the bottom of a Genovese villa’s garden is RP studio-workshop. Two other studios are in London and Paris, the latter having spent the best part of the last five years working on the Beaubourg design and site. The room where drawing boards and meeting tables, desks and shelves and long counters are fitted is linked with the basement of the villa. Here in a well equipped workshop ,plans are systematically put to trial. Systems and parts are built and drawing-board products are tested. This is considered part of the plan. —Arbitare n171 1979 72

it is quite difficult. Renzo is quite critical of using the proper scale. In terms of understanding the project the section is also an easy way to express the project. For me the section allows us to express what we want. It is a way of thinking.

You bring up Sejima, she is always interested in the plan. Not very much in the section.

Sometimes her plan is like a diagram. I remember the associate architect for the Kimbell was the same associate architect for the SANAA museum in Toledo. He always said, that she would continue to draw these diagrammatic plans even in the construction documents!

At the time of the construction of the Pompidou, Philip Johnson would come look at the construction documents for the floors. He was frustrated about how to conceive of how these spaces were working, a resistance to the universal plan.

Q/ About the current studio itself in Genova.

It has been a privilege to experience working in a space that is not neutral and takes a position on architecture. This is contrary to the idea of seeking a neutral space, the white box. The building itself embodies many of the characteristics that at least from the outsider’s perspective that defines the work of Renzo. Yet the studio is also a personal space, and extension of a house. The studio is also on land that was owned by the Piano family and is in a territory 73

Perhaps the most informal and environmentally satisfying glasshouse is Frei Otto’s own private house situated on a hillside facing south above a village near Stuttgart. Movable radiant heaters make the huge glass space habitable in the winter. In the summer, the roof slides upward providing maximum ventilation. The house is in two units, the lower, a multi-level glass-enclosed studio with attached garage and the upper, the main glass house with flat roofed rooms pushed into it at two levels. On one side are the parents’ room, with kitchen, a small living room, bedroom and the mechanical equipment house.

The other side is for the children, with a guest suite downhill. In the centre, behind the sliding glass roof, is a small wading pool surrounded by warm-climate plants -fig, orange and eucalyptus.

—from John Hix “The Glass House” 74

Frei Otto personal house and studio in a village outside of Stuttgart 75

that is understood well -the relation between sky, sea, land, plants, and it was a starting point of many interesting innovations in construction.

For you, what lens do you think one can interrupt the Genova building workshop? As an example of constructive evolution? As an example of a personal project? As an example of case-study house?

I think the building workshop is all these things.

If you go around, especially towards France, you see the use of the tiered greenhouses. This typology of stepping down the landscape. In a way, it is connected to the territory and could be an good place to work. It is a local technology, a technological building tied to the Ligurian context, the human element we spoke about before.

Yes, there is the connection to the greenhouse, but also to the legacy of other architects houses.

For example, Frei Otto, whom I spoke about earlier had a studio/house in Stuttgart. It is using a very similar idea. We had the opportunity to see the Charles and Ray Eames house, and meet with Ray, and it was also an inspiration.

In the case-study houses in California it is a simple building. It was not high technology but using simple construction material. In the 1970s, John Hix wrote a book the “The Glass House� adapting the greenhouse idea to offices and working spaces. All these things were in the back 76

of our minds.

I wanted to say when we started to do the construction here, we consulted with Peter Rice and Tom Barker. Tom told us, “Do not put too many things before, but adapt little by little, learn and add over time! Have a simple greenhouse and then you have to add. If you are cold, just add another layer of insulation.� This is part of the experimental nature of the work. The greenhouse is the primary piece, like a container, but from living and working we can learn from and improve how the building works over time.

Q/ As a young architect, I would like to know what is the relation between the space of creation and the work that is produced?

Certainly, of course, there is relationship. I think you experienced it working here, probably not only in what you produced but in the way you produced it. For Renzo, this relationship is probably best understood by the fact that his house was always inside or very close to the studio. Here in Vesima, the home is in the farmhouse, but in Paris at one time, it was in an apartment in the same building as the studio. At the studio on the Piazza San Mateo, Renzo took an apartment across the square. This closeness to your work, means that there is a back and forth relationship between what you make and where you make it.

77

3 observations and an interview from the Renzo Piano Building Workshop