Quotes by Renzo Piano

About Renzo Piano:

Renzo Piano is an Italian architect and engineer, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1998. Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff said of Piano's works that the "...serenity of his best buildings can almost make you believe that we live in a civilized world."
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In some way, people believe that if you are permeable, if you are a good listener, you don't have the quality of somebody with a firm attitude. This is what, fundamentally, I got from my mother.

Renzo Piano

In architecture you should live for 150 years, because you have to learn in the first 75 years.

Renzo Piano

In a way I spend my entire life stealing from everything - from the past, from cities I love, from where I grew up - grabbing things, taking not only from architecture but from Italy, art, writing, poetry, music.

Renzo Piano

There is something about giving everything to your profession. In Italian, an obsession is not necessarily negative. It's the art of putting all your energy into one thing; it's the art of transforming even what you eat for lunch into architecture.

Renzo Piano

Architecture is a very dangerous job. If a writer makes a bad book, eh, people don't read it. But if you make bad architecture, you impose ugliness on a place for a hundred years.

Renzo Piano

I came to architecture from building. Because my father was a builder, everybody was - and is - a builder in my family.

Renzo Piano

You have to accept as an architect to be exposed to criticism. Architecture should not rely on full harmony.

Renzo Piano

London is one of the most civilised places in the world for the procedure of making architecture and urban design.

Renzo Piano

Enjoying art is a personal matter. It's made up by contemplation, silence, abstraction.

Renzo Piano

As an architect, you have to provide a shelter to enjoy art. And you have to love art. It's like when you make a concert hall. You must love music. This is the reason why you make the space, to enjoy music - making a space for art is the same thing.

Renzo Piano

Great American art needs the idea of uninterrupted spaces, like a loft, which itself is something very American.

Renzo Piano

A museum is a place where one should lose one's head.

Renzo Piano

As an architect, you cannot be so arrogant as to say you are 100% sure about what you do.

Renzo Piano

The day I went to see my father to say I wanted to become an architect, he was a bit surprised, because for him being a builder is much more than being just an architect. He was very angry, and I never thought I could do something else.

Renzo Piano

A piazza is not a plaza. The plaza is the theme park of the piazza; the plaza is the commercial version. A piazza is an empty space with no function. This is what Europeans understand.

Renzo Piano

I don't remember a single thing in my childhood that was not related in some way to building.

Renzo Piano

I think people should try to teach young children that these qualities - stubbornness and a capacity to listen - might look like they are opposites, but they are not.

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

When I was a student in the '60s, I dreamt of making a house 7 feet by 7 feet, as a dream of freedom, of self-moderation.

Renzo Piano

I don't want to be romantic, but one of the most important things is to have happy buildings... it's like having a family with a lot of children.

Renzo Piano

Author Bio

  • NameRenzo Piano
  • DescriptionItalian architect and engineer
  • BornSeptember 14, 1937
  • CountryItaly
  • ProfessionArchitect; Politician
  • WorksThe Shard; Kansai International Airport; Stadio San Nicola; Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo
  • AwardsKnight Of The Legion Of Honour; Knight Grand Cross Of The Order Of Merit Of The Italian Republic; Gold Medal Of The Italian Order Of Merit For Culture And Art; Royal Gold Medal; Prix De L'Équerre D'Argent; Pritzker Architecture Prize; Erasmus Prize; Praemium Imperiale