ARC 316
CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
RENZO PIANO
SUBMITTED BY: RINZING SHERPA, 11502961
SUBMITTED TO: AR. RAMNINDER KAUR,
RENZO PIANO
Born on: 14 September 1937
Native of: Genoa, Italy
Ethnicity: Italian
INTRODUCTION
• Renzo Piano was born in 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.
• In 1964, he graduated with a dissertation about modular
coordination supervised by Giuseppe Ciribini and began
working with experimental lightweight structures and
basic shelters.
• In 1980, He formed Renzo Piano Building Workshop,
which now has offices in Paris, Genoa and Berlin.
• In 1998 Renzo Piano won the Pritzker Prize for his
controversial work, The Center Pompidou.
EARLY LIFE
• 1965- Piano taught at the Polytechnic University until 1968.
• During this time he worked in two large international firms, for the
modernist architect Louis Kahn in Philadelphia and for the Polish
engineer Zygmunt Stanisław Makowski in London.
• 1968- He completed his first building, the IPE factory in Genoa.
• He also worked on the design of a pavilion at the Milan Triennale in
the same year.
• 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.
• 1971- Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers decided to open their own firm,
Piano and Rogers, where they worked together from 1971 to 1977.
• The first project of the firm was the administrative building of B&B
Italia, an Italian furniture company, in Novedrate, Como, Italy. This
design featured suspended container and an open bearing structure,
with the conduits for heating and water on the exterior painted in
bright colors (blue, red and yellow). These unusual features attracted
considerable attention in the architectural world, and influenced the
choice of the jurors who selected Piano and Rogers to design the
Pompidou Center.
• 1971- Piano and Rogers were awarded the commission for
the construction of The Center Pompidou.
• 1992- he embarked on the $500 million rehabilitation of
Genoa’s ancient harbor, a gigantic urban reclamation
project conceived in celebration of the five hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of America.
• 1998- Piano won the Pritzker Prize. The jury citation
compared Piano to Michelangelo and da Vinci and credited
him with "redefining modern and postmodern
architecture."
• 2006- Piano was selected by TIME as one of the 100 most
influential people in the world. He was chosen as the 10th
most influential person in the "Arts and Entertainment"
category.
• 18 March, 2008- he became an
honorary citizen of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• August 2013- he was appointed Senator for Life in
the Italian Senate by President Giorgio Napolitano.
PHILOSOPHY
• Renzo Piano’s style of architecture is often referred to as “High tech
architecture”.
• High-tech buildings are often called machine-like. Steel, aluminium,
and glass combine with brightly colored braces, girders, and beams.
Many of the building parts are prefabricated in a factory and
assembled later. The support beams, duct work, and other functional
elements are placed on the exterior of the building, where they
become the focus of attention. The interior spaces are open and
adaptable for many uses.
• Renzo Piano’s designs became markedly different from the flamboyant
structural display of the Centre Pompidou; he has instead become
revered for his light designs and precise detailing.
• "Architecture is an artistic craft, but at the same time it is also a
scientific profession, it is precisely its distinctiveness"
• "When style gets to become a brand, a personal seal, this becomes a
cage"
• Piano refutes the idea that his work displays any single style,
however, telling The Independent “I think it ['style'] is a trap. But what I
don’t hate is 'intelligence' or 'coherence.' Because coherence is not
about shape, it is about something stronger, more humanistic, more
poetic even.”
• Despite his works being labelled as high-tech architecture, post-
modern, brutal expressionism, Renzo himself doesn’t like ghis style to
be labelled as something specific. He believes that each building that
he designs has its own style and a personal taste which doesn’t belong
to a any specific style alltogether.
ACHIEVEMENTS
•1989, Royal Gold Medal
•1990, Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della
Repubblica Italiana
•1990, Kyoto Prize
•Italian Order of Merit for Culture and Art, 28 March 1994
•1995, Erasmus Prize
•1995, Praemium Imperiale
•1998, Pritzker Architecture Prize
•2000, Spirit of Wood Architecture Award, Helsinki, Finland
•2002, International Union of Architects#UIA Gold Medal.
•2004, Honorary doctorate from Columbia University,
New York
•2006, Gold Medal for Italian Architecture, Milano
•2008, AIA Gold Medal
•2008, Sonning Prize
•2013, elected into the National Academy of Design in
New York City
•2017, Knight Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X,
the Wise
NOTABLE WORKS
• Centre Pompidou (1973–77)
• The Shard (2009)
• Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Noumea, New
Caledonia (1991–98)
• Old Port of Genoa (1985–2001) and Lingotto Factory in
Turin (1983–2003)
• Maison Hermès (1998–2001)
• Auditorium Niccolo Paganini (1997–2001)
• Fondation Beyeler (1991–97)
• Kansai International Airport (1991–94)
• Menil Collection (1981–87)
• Paris "The Whale" Commercial Mall Bercy 2 (1990)
• Zentrum Paul Klee (1999–2005)
• High Museum of Art Extension (1999–2005)
THE CENTRE POMPIDOU
GENERAL INFORMATION
Architects: Renzo Piano & Richard Rogers
Engineers: Ove Arup & Partners
Area
Land area: 2 hectares
Center Area: 103 305 m²
Location: Paris, France
Cost
Initial cost: 993 million francs.
Renovation work: 576 million francs.
Year of construction: 1971-1977
Architecture style: Brutalist, structural expressionism,
Post-modern, High Tech,
HISTORY
• Rogers + Piano's design for the Centre Pompidou
was the winner of an international competition for
a large art gallery held by French president George
Pompidou in 1971.
• The design of Renzo Piano and Richard Roger was
selected from 681 entries.
• It was the first time in France that international
architects were allowed to participate.
SITE PLAN
• The idea of a multicultural complex, that brought together
different forms of art and literature gave rise to the idea of
The Centre Pompidou, named after the then French
President Georges Pompidou.
• The construction started in 1971 and finished by 1977.
Renovation work conducted from October 1996 to January
2000. Another renovation work is proposed to be started
from 2023 and will last four years.
INTERIOR VIEW
• Half the site was left unbuilt to make way for a square of
CONCEPT civic proportions which could be used for a wide variety
of community uses including markets, exhibitions,
performances, etc.
• Wide unobstructed floor spaces were created to depict
the concept of portraying the museum as a movement.
• Facing the square, the west facade is given over to
circulation: vertical and horizontal movement, taking
advantage of spectacular views over Paris.
• The east façade is a mechanical services zone,
smothered in color-coded ducts, pipework, goods lifts
and fire stairs.
• The zone in between- inside the building, is for art.
• The building was envisaged as a cross between ‘an
information-oriented computerized Times Square and
the British Museum’, a democratic place for all people
and the center-piece of a regenerated quarter of the
city.
• The internal spaces are meant to represent flexibility.
The spaces in the building can be changed based on the
requirements of the functions.
• The need for interior flexibility pushed the designers to
place structure and services on the outside.
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DESIGN • All of the functional structural elements of the
building were color-coded: green pipes
are plumbing, blue ducts are for climate
control, electrical wires are encased in yellow,
and circulation elements and devices for safety
(e.g., fire extinguishers) are red.
• Plan Area: 164 x 60 mtrs.
• Building height: 45.5 mtrs(East elevation)
42 mtrs( West elevation)
• Constructed from more than 16,000 tonnes of
prefabricated steel parts.
• The entrance to the building is at the level of the street
and the piazza and relates to the life of both. Alternative
access is via the lifts, escalators and staircases attached to
the west façade. Each of the five major floors are
uninterrupted by structure, services or circulation
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MAIN STRUCTURAL SYSTEM • Each of the 13 bays consists of a truss, supported by
columns on both sides. To stabilize each bay on both sides,
gerberettes were used. Gerberettes are small cantilevered
pivoting beams that allow the tie rods and the columns to
share the vertical load. Where the gerberette meets the
column is now the fulcrum point of the cantilever, causing
the tie rods to be in tension while the column stays in
compression.
• To the left a system of "gerberettes" are used to suspend
the walkways from the front of the building. To the right
the "gerberettes" are used to support the exposed
mechanical systems on the rear of the building.
• In order to resolve multiple members into one
point on the sling support for the walkways, a
round donut shaped plate is used. The circular
geometry is able to easily resolve the varied angles
of the incoming members.
• The geometry of multiple incoming
members along the front face of the building
is again resolved using a circular connector.
In this case the circle is a short section of
hollow member and holes are drilled into
the side of the tube to allow the incoming
truss and X bracing members to bolt through
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GERBERETTES • The combination of a suspended beam and a short
propped cantilever is known as the gerberette solution,
and Centre Pompidou's short beams are referred to as
gerberettes. This solution for supporting the loads outside
the façades without obscuring them
• These cantilevered arms connect to the steel columns
Each one gerberette weighs 9.6 tons Ensures that the load
from the 6 floors is transferred down to the foundation
and into the load bearing columns Prevents from a
bending moment
• The decision to use cast steel as a major element of the
scheme was made early on in the design process by Peter
Rice, who was looking for a way to 'personalise' the
structure, giving it individuality.
BRACING SYSTEM The bracing of the building is also taken to the façade, with
steel cables cross bracing the building. The longitudinal
bracing is incorporated to the correct system, and eventually
fixed to the ground, while the transversal bracing is done
directly connected to the heat and trusses of the building.
These different arrangements create a completely open
building on the inside, free of any structure or obstacle, with
almost every force been taking in the tension by the outside
still superstructure. This is something that had radical
realistically never been done in architecture before and true
revolutionary approach to the structural engineering and
architecture.
LONGITUDINAL BRACING TRANSVERSAL BRACING
1. Studio 13/16 1. Reception and Information Desk
2. Main Forum 2. Forum
3. Ticket Shows 3. RMN Shop Pompidou Centre
4. Cinema 2 4. Ticketing and Sales
5. Small Exhibition Hall 5. Cloakrooms
6. Large Exhibition Hall 6. Multimedia Guides Rentals
BASEMENT GROUND FLOOR PLAN 7. Library
1. BPI (reference room,
dressing room for the
visually impaired) 1. General Fund
2. Cinema 2. Study Space
3. Children's Gallery 3. Television of the World
4. Coffee, "Mezzanine“ 4. Press Room
5. Space 315 5. Cafeteria
6. South Gallery
FIRST FLOOR PLAN SECOND FLOOR PLAN
1. Museum, Contemporary
Collection
2. New Media and Movie Space
1. Space Electrical Equipment 3. Fair Visitors
2. General Fund 4. Gallery Museum
3. Kandinsky Library and Graphic 5. Gallery of Graphic Arts
Design Studio 6. Shop
7. Bookstore
THIRD FLOOR PLAN FOURTH FLOOR PLAN
1. Gallery 1
1. Museum, Modern Collection 2. Gallery 2
2. North Terrace 3. -
3. West Terrace 4. Restaurant, "The George"
4. South Terrace 5. Bookstore
FIFTH FLOOR PLAN SIXTH FLOOR PLAN
CONCLUSION
• There is a system of water that goes inside the metal
superstructure, which is in charge of keeping it cool.
• All the colored tubes in the façade don’t serve any
function, some are just for aesthetic purpose.
• The Centre Pompidou a museum of contemporary art, but
it also has an important Public Information Library,
an Industrial Center of Creation and the Institute of
Research in Musical Creation.
• The Centre Pompidou totally achieved the aim of his
founder, which was mainly the revitalization of the
“Beaubourg, was a joyous urban machine, a creature which might
deteriorated area of the Beaubourg quarter. But it was not have come out of a Jules Verne novel, a sort of bizarre boat in dry
the only success, as it is an icon in the world of dock... It is a double provocation; a challenge to academism, but
Architecture, apart from being one of the most important also a parody of the imagery of technology of our time. To consider
museums in the whole world. it as a high-tech object is a mistake.”- Renzo Piano
• Since it was complete the Centre Pompidou has had more
than 150 million visitors and it is now celebrated as one of
Paris' more important cultural landmarks.
• The New York Times declared that their design "turned the
architecture world upside down". More literally it turned
architecture inside-out.
• The center Pompidou has integrated high-tech architecture
and urbanism as a movement and spectacle for the city to
experience everyday.
