One of his first projects, a house for Richard Rogers’s parents, was carried out with his late wife, and former partner, Wendy Foster, and Richard and Sue Rogers, working together as “Team 4″. Foster Associates was founded in London in 1967 and has grown into an enormously successful practice, with projects in many parts of the world.

Major projects include the controversial Reliance Controls Factory (1966-7), the much-admired black glass Willis Faber Dumas offices, Ipswich (1974-5), the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts (1976-8), what was described as the most expensive office building ever constructed, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (1979-85), and the Stansted Airport Terminal (1980-90).

Over the years Foster has worked with a number of partners, who are all now well established in their own practices, including Birkin Haward and Michael Hopkins. The “High-Tech” vocabulary of the practice is uncompromising and clear in its exploration of technological innovation: technology produces form.

However, Foster is also deeply concerned with architectural details and the craftsmanship that goes into them. Emphasis is often laid on the repetition of industrialized “modular” units in his work. Prefabricated off-site-manufactured elements are frequently employed and specialist components are often specially designed for individual projects, as at Hong Kong.

Foster was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1983, and in 1990 the RIBA Trustees Medal was made for the Willis Faber Dumas building, Ipswich. He was knighted in 1990.

List of major buildings / works:
Reliance Controls Factory, Swindon, 1966-7.
Willis Faber Dumas offices, Ipswich, Suffolk, 1974-5.
Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 1976-8.
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, 1979-85.
M6diatheque, Maison Carree, Nimes, France, from 1984.
Airport Terminal, Stansted, Essex, 1980-91.
Kings Cross Redevelopment, London, 1988- .

Bibliography
R. Banham (intro.) Foster Associates, London 1979.
Various authors, Foster Associates: Buildings and Protects, 3 vols., London, 1989.

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.