The 'Brown' and the Contradictory: An Interview with Renzo Piano

摘要

By Renzo Piano's own admission, the historic harbour of his home town of Genoa is a brownfield site. The city's factory since ancient times, its 'modern' 16th-century harbour is built on the site of earlier 14th-century and Roman ports. In conversation with Amy Lelyveld, Piano discusses how fecund an influence Genoa and brownfields in general have proved for his practice - 'brown' often providing a rich architectural context and seam of contradiction. A store-front model shop marks the entrance to the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in the heart of Paris's Marais district. From the street you can watch a truss or an auditorium take physical shape as model builders assemble parts in the space's warm wood glow. The model shop is a good fit in this neighbourhood of refined craft -of expensive handmade shoes, exquisite tea emporia and tasteful antiques. But as a figurehead expression of what the workshop is about, the model shop is also a bit of a tease -a single essence chosen and distilled from the complex mix of reason and passion that feeds a Piano design.