Renzo Piano's Workshop

Built in 1989 toward the western edge of Genoa, the site has been purposely isolated like a desert island. It invites calm, silence, concentration and creativity. It is not, however, a hermitage: people of all different nationalities work there, and the door is always open to colleagues. Punta Nave is in perfect harmony with its surroundings. The workshop's gradually sloping terraces, which open onto the sea, are built in glass and made to be exact replicas of the traditional greenhouses found on the Ligurian coast. Lying between the mountain and the Mediterranean Sea, Punta Nave stands as a homage we wished to give to the sea. The workshop is an immense greenhouse overtaken inside and out by all types of plants and greenery, creating the feeling of a privileged communion with nature. In the same spirit, we sought to take maximum advantage of the zenithal light that pervades every aspect of life here and has rapidly become our natural clock. While Punta Nave is a refuge deliberately away from the center, it can nevertheless communicate in real time with the rest of the world thanks to new technology. It is therefore not really the opposite of the city; it is what we prefer to call a post-urban research center. Renzo Piano has founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshops, a sort of international architecture academy where students and experienced architects work together in teams.
These architectural studios – located in Paris and Genoa – resemble Renaissance workshops in their combination of theory and practice. Sensitivity to the particularity and culture of the site – coupled with functional analysis and constructional daring. Though each project pushes the envelope of technology, this is always done with great consideration for local conditions. The exhibition will show the most advanced methods of construction and unexpected materials employed within the same ecological spaces, whether they are housing projects, museums, concert halls or cultural centers. This will be a center where international students will have the opportunity to perfect their skill as architects "by gaining hands on experience of the profession, as a mix of art, science, and community."