Piano, Renzo (1937-…), is an Italian architect and designer. Piano does not have a single personal style, but he has been praised for his skill at integrating his buildings into their settings and for his ability to blend art and technology. In 1998, Piano was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious international award in architecture.
Piano has designed a wide variety of structures throughout the world. They include airline and railway terminals, subway stations, apartments, bridges, churches, factories, houses, shopping centers, stadiums, and theaters. His other work includes city planning projects and renovations and reconstructions of existing buildings. He has also designed automobiles and ships.
Piano was born on Sept. 14, 1937, in Genoa, Italy. He graduated from the School of Architecture of the Milan Polytechnic in 1964 and taught there until 1968. From 1965 to 1970, he also worked in the offices of the American architect Louis Kahn and the British architect Z. S. Makowsky.
Piano started a partnership with the British architect Richard Rogers in 1970. Piano first gained international recognition for the design of the Pompidou Center (completed in 1977) in Paris. The building initially created considerable controversy for its colorful, unorthodox design but has since become a Paris landmark.
Piano has won praise for several museum projects in the United States. They include the buildings to house the Menil Collection of art (1986) in Houston, the expansion of the High Museum of Art (2005) in Atlanta, an addition to the Morgan Library & Museum (2006) in New York City, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (2008) in Los Angeles, the California Academy of Sciences (2008) in San Francisco, the Modern Wing (2009) of the Art Institute of Chicago, an addition to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (2013), and a new building for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015). Piano also designed the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion (2010) for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art behind the Broad museum, the expansion of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (2012) in Boston, the Lenfest Center for the Arts (2017) at Columbia University in New York City, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (2021) in Los Angeles.
Piano’s other projects include the Kansai International Airport (1994) in Osaka, Japan; the National Center for Science and Technology (1997) in Amsterdam; the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center (1998) in Noumea, New Caledonia; Aurora Place (2000), an office tower and residential building in Sydney, Australia; the Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church (2004) in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy; the New York Times headquarters (2007) in New York City; and a convent and visitors center (2012) for the order of Poor Clares in Ronchamp, France. Piano designed the London Bridge Tower (2012), commonly called the Shard. He also designed the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (2016) in Athens, which includes the Greek National Opera, the National Library, and a park.
