Renzo Piano
| Senator for life Renzo Piano OMRI OMCA |
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Piano in 2007
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| Born |
14 September 1937 Genoa, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Alma mater | Politecnico di Milano |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Awards |
Pritzker Architecture Prize RIBA Gold Medal Sonning Prize AIA Gold Medal Kyoto Prize |
| Buildings |
Kansai International Airport Centre Georges Pompidou Parco della Musica Shard London Bridge The New York Times Building Whitney Museum of American Art Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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 Whitney Stories: Renzo Piano, 2:31, Whitney Museum of American Art
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Renzo Piano in conversation with Colin B. Bailey, 7:12, The Morgan Library & Museum
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Renzo Piano, OMRI, OMCA (Italian: [ˈrɛntso ˈpjaːno]; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect and engineer. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015). He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998.
Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, into a family of builders. His grandfather had created a masonry enterprise, which had been expanded by his father, Carlo Piano and his father's three brothers, into the firm Fratelli Piano. The firm prospered after World War II, constructing houses and factories and selling construction materials. When his father retired the enterprise was led by Renzo's older brother, Ermanno, who studied engineering at the University of Genoa. Renzo studied architecture at the Milan Polytechnic University. He graduated in 1964 with a dissertation about modular coordination (coordinazione modulare) supervised by Giuseppe Ciribini and began working with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters.
Piano taught at the Polytechnic University from 1965 until 1968, and expanded his horizons and technical skills by working in two large international firms, for the modernist architect Louis Kahn in Philadelphia and for the Polish engineer Zygmunt Stanlislaw Makaovski in London. He completed his first building, the IPE factory in Genoa, in 1968, with a roof of steel and reinforced polyester, and created an ingenious continuous membrane for the covering of a pavilion at the Milan Triennale in the same year. In 1970, he received his first international commission, for the Pavilion of Italian Industry for Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. He collaborated with his brother Ermanno and the family firm, which manufactured the structure. It was lightweight and original composed of steel and reinforced polyester, and it appeared to be simultaneously artistic and industrial.
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