Renzo Piano ( born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect and engineer, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1998. At first, Piano became known for his collaborations with other architects.
The most famous project during those years is the one designed in 1971 together with the Italian architect Gianfranco Franchini, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris He also had a long collaboration with the engineer Peter Rice between 1977 and 1981.In that year Piano founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which today maintains offices in Paris, Genoa, and New York City.
In 1988 restored and designed Porto Antico in Genoa (Expo’92), Genoa Aquarium and Big, the panoramic lift. In 1992 he started to design Postdamer Platz area in Berlin.
In 2001, he designed the Maison Hermes store in Ginza, Tokyo; in 2002 was inaugurated Renzo Piano’s Auditorium Parco della Musica, in Rome. Piano has become known also for his museum commissions, including the Morgan Library in New York City, the NEMO science museum in Amsterdam and the Art Institute of Chicago, the Botín Center in Spain and the High Line-adjacent location of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Piano designed the new building of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco (completed in 2008). Recently a number of Piano’s most notable projects have been completed: The New York Times Building in Midtown, Manhattan and The Shard in London (2012).
