The Complete Works, Volume Two
Renzo Piano is an architect whose work is of exceptional relevance to our times. he follows no fashions of form or theory, nor is he limited to any personal idiom. Instead he pursues an independent yet inclusive and collaborative approach, responding to the specifics and potential of a particular situation and moment. He is concerned with the making of the building as much as with its final form.
The work of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop is characterized by its sensitive and resonant responses to genius loci and local tradition as well as by its uncontrived mix of traditional materials and techniques with those from the leading edge of technology. Although each project in some respect pushes technology to new limits, it always does so in a way that enhances and helps regenerate historic fabric and the local endowments of nature. It is this ecological, evolutionary and humanistic vision of an architecture that participates in all aspects of local context and culture, as well as in the unfolding future, that gives Piano's architecture its unparalleled and timely significance. It also accounts for the striking heterogeneity of his works being built around the world from bases in Genoa, Paris and Osaka - work that is as global in its sympathies as in its geographic spread.
This second volume of 'Complete Works' illustrates all Renzo Piano's projects built since 1990, and includes current schemes at a sufficiently advanced stage of design to have a distinct and developed identity of their own. As in the previous volume, the Building Workshop's architecture is presented more clearly and comprehensively than elsewhere, with copious photographs, sketches and drawings. The authoritative text is full of critical insight as it draws out the general significance of each work and relates them one to another. It is complemented by the author's revealing interview with Renzo Piano.
