Piano

Building virtuoso: The exploration and iconoclasm of an Italian master

While some architects have a signature style, Renzo Piano seeks to apply coherent ideas to extraordinarily different projects. His buildings impress as much for their individual impact as for their diversity of scale, material, and form.

Piano rose to international prominence with his codesign of the Pompidou Center in Paris, described by The New York Times as a building that “turned the architecture world upside down.” Since then, he has continued to craft many high-profile cultural spaces, including the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Morgan Library Renovation and Expansion in New York; and, most recently, the Whitney Museum of American Art, an asymmetric nine-story structure in Manhattan's Meatpacking District with both indoor and outdoor galleries.