The practice’s most important work, however, was its winning entry for the Place Beaubourg competition for a national arts centre in the middle of Paris, organized by the French government in 1973 (the Pompidou Centre). The imposing six-storey design takes the metaphor of “cultural machine” to its technological extreme by placing the structural skeleton and colour-coded servicing elements on the outside of the building.

Piano’s use of technological function as a point of departure characterizes the work of what has become known as the “High-Tech” group of famous architects. This movement includes English designers such as Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw and Michael Hopkins. However, Piano’s desire to achieve a particular aesthetic quality is tempered by a concern for accommodating the user’s needs.

In his later work Piano has continued the structural experiments of the Pompidou Centre, applying them to a range of social and civic projects such as the residential quarter at Corciano in Perugia, the museum building for the De Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and, most recently, a new football stadium in Bari, S Italy, built for the 1990 World Cup. The Stadio Nuovo continues Piano’s fruitful collaboration with the English engineer Peter Rice of Ove Arup and Partners.

List of Piano’s major works:

• Centre Beaubourg, Paris (with Richard Rogers and Peter Rice), Paris, 1973-7.
• PATScentre Research Laboratories and Workshops, Cambridge, England (with Richard Rogers), 1975.
• Experimental residential quarter, Corciano, Perugia (with Peter Rice), 1978-82.
• Museum for the De Mend Collection, Houston, ‘Eexas, 1981.
• Stadio Nuovo, Bari (with Peter Rice), 1990.

Bibliography

• “Renzo Piano”, Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Feb. 1982.
• Dino Massimo, Renzo Piano: progetti e arcbitettnra 1964-1953, Paris and Milan, 1983.
• Paul Goldberger (intro.), Renzi, Piano: Buildings and Protects 1971.1989, New York, 1989.

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