The craftsman: Renzo Piano is disdainful of dependence on design software, preferring conventional methods and tools
The man behind London's Shard tells why his role is to reflect the way culture is evolving
Financial Times Paris 3/6/13
Emma Jacobs
"The Pompidou is so integral to Paris’s cultural landscape that it is easy to forget how shocking it was at the time. Lord Rogers nearly quit architecture as a result of the hostility. But Mr Piano says the factory-like appearance of the building, which opened in 1977, was a deliberate attempt to democratise culture.
“Museums were dusty and boring,” he says. “[We wanted to] inject curiosity, instead of intimidation . . . We were very young, bad boys.” An architect’s role, he adds, is “not to change the world [but] to materialise [social] change” through buildings. He has not sought trouble, but by reflecting cultural changes in his buildings he has ended up “always being a bit in trouble”.
The Shard, which opened at the start of the year, has also come in for fierce criticism. Funded by the Qatari royal family’s gas fortunes, it has been denigrated as a vulgar monument to wealth and power. Mr Piano once described skyscrapers as “aggressive phallic fortresses”. What does he think of it?
“It’s good. It will take a little while to become [accepted]. The [Pompidou] took 10 years to become popular and to be adopted by the city, loved. The Shard will take much less.”
complete article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e407fef8-b96a-11e2-bc57-00144feabdc0.html#slide0
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