Notation 2016, No.6 »Centre Pompidou«

Centre Pompidou was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano; British architect Richard Rogers; and Italian architect Gianfranco Franchini. The project was awarded to this team in an architectural design competition, whose results were announced in 1971. It was the first time in France that international architects were allowed to participate. World-renowned architects Oscar Niemeyer, Jean Prouvé and Philip Johnson made up the jury which would select one design out of the 681 entries.

»Architecture is art. I don't think you should say that too much, but it is art. I mean, architecture is many, many things. Architecture is science, is technology, is geography, is typography, is anthropology, is sociology, is art, is history. You know all this comes together. Architecture is a kind of bouillabaisse, an incredible bouillabaisse. And, by the way, architecture is also a very polluted art in the sense that it's polluted by life, and by the complexity of things.« Renzo Piano

Featured
»As an architect you are a builder. You are of course more than a builder. You need to be a militant, you have to be a poet, you have to be a visionary, you have to be an artist. But certainly you have to be a builder. Everything starts from there.«

»As an architect you are a builder. You are of course more than a builder. You need to be a militant, you have to be a poet, you have to be a visionary, you have to be an artist. But certainly you have to be a builder. Everything starts from there.« Renzo Piano

»One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.« Renzo Piano

»One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.« Renzo Piano

»Architects spend an entire life with this unreasonable idea that you can fight against gravity.« Renzo Piano

»Architects spend an entire life with this unreasonable idea that you can fight against gravity.« Renzo Piano

»Light has not just intensity, but also a vibration, which is capable of roughening a smooth material, of giving a three-dimensional quality to a flat surface.« Renzo Piano

»Light has not just intensity, but also a vibration, which is capable of roughening a smooth material, of giving a three-dimensional quality to a flat surface.« Renzo Piano

»If you have total freedom, then you are in trouble. It's much better when you have some obligation, some discipline, some rules. When you have no rules, then you start to build your own rules.« Renzo Piano

»If you have total freedom, then you are in trouble. It's much better when you have some obligation, some discipline, some rules. When you have no rules, then you start to build your own rules.« Renzo Piano

»Architects have to dream, we have to search for our Atlantises, to be explorers, adventurers, and yet to build responsibly and well.« Renzo Piano

»Architects have to dream, we have to search for our Atlantises, to be explorers, adventurers, and yet to build responsibly and well.« Renzo Piano

Tomaso Carnetto