Pritzker laureate Renzo Piano (b. September 14, 1937) is the most life-loving architect passionate about science, talks about the influence of art on the formation of neural connections, about the fusion of squares and buildings, and advises everyone to go to concerts.
About Museums When Richard Rogers and I were young, we wanted to turn the world inside out. Then, in the early 70s, it was necessary to make the museum look like a factory so that it would no longer be a place for the elite and art professionals. It was necessary to use architectural techniques of industrial culture so that everyone, seeing this building, could say: well, we ended up in a factory. And it was much better than a museum in the traditional sense, since the classic example is more like a monument. It was necessary to break this image, like breaking a block of stone. Since then I have had to work a lot on museums – and it seems that I have been able to contribute to changing the old concept.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
About art A work of art works wonders. Because any person, no matter what his background, becomes more educated when encountering art. The viewer begins to think differently, beauty lights a fire in his eyes. Moreover, art prolongs life. The more you go to museums, the longer you live!
About transparency Nowadays, technologies make it possible to build incredibly tall and thin buildings consisting of almost steel and glass. Due to the fact that the glazing is continuous, all sides of the street are clearly visible. There is a feeling that you are not quite inside the building. This trick, when the external space is almost not separated from the internal, is interesting for me to work with. The first floors of the buildings are already almost indistinguishable from the courtyard or square, one becomes a continuation of the other.
Palace of Justice in Paris
Creating squares in front of every public building – library, theater, concert hall – is a great idea. People will make appointments there, and then perhaps they will get the idea to go there, even if they had no intention of doing so. This is such a trap in the good sense of the word, a “secret garden.” Any place where people gather together should be designed in such a way that people would like to come there more often.
Cultural center Centro Botín in Santander, Spain
About concerts Do you know what’s good about concerts? You are listening to music. And you do it in a room where a thousand other people are enjoying the same thing. You experience the same emotions at the same time. You share the same values. This process is extremely important for bringing people together. And bringing people together is the most invisible but significant part of an architect’s work.
My musician friends complain that their art, their sounds, disappear after performance – and perhaps there will never be another performance of the music. I believe that any type of art lives for a very long time. There are music recordings, they can be stored and played back an infinite number of times, anywhere. Look at digital libraries and repositories, there has never been such an opportunity to hear almost any music directly from home. Yes, architects may be in an advantageous position: our art is visible and tangible. But it is unlikely that every person can get to all the architectural masterpieces and see them in person.
I believe that any work of art is the most enduring thing that can exist on earth. In the form of an object or in the form of an impression that is transformed into other actions, thoughts, desires.
Auditorium in the Park of Music, Rome
About the structure of the brain and power I designed a building for Columbia University (Columbia University for the Mind Brain Behavior Initiative). Scientists work there, including Nobel Prize winners: Richard Axel and Eric Kandel, now they are my friends. It was surprisingly interesting to communicate with them: it turned out that they are very sensitive to the environment in which they find themselves. Maybe even more, as they understand how the brain reacts to everything around it. So Kandel found out that even the simplest forms of behavior change under the influence of training. That learning and memory are changes in connections between neurons. That learning leads to a physiological change in the nervous system. For example, in violinists and cellists, the area of the cortex responsible for the fingers of the left hand with which they pinch the strings is twice as large as in the brain of a non-musician. Those who play the strings from childhood have a better development of this area than those who started playing in adolescence and later: our brains are more plastic in childhood. By the way, the area responsible for the fingers of the right hand does not develop this way, because they perform simpler work, holding the bow. In general, it is scientifically proven that repetition is the mother of learning as it is essential for long-term memory.
There are different types of power and strength: physical power, the power of money, the power of resistance, and then there is the power of knowledge and the brain. I would like to believe that our brain is capable of conquering time. At least I hope that my brain will allow me to remain active until the last day.
Reconstruction project of the former power station GES-2. Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW). 2015.
