Architect Renzo Piano Interview: On the Shoulders of Giants | Louisiana Channel

[Music] it's hard to say because there are so many things shaping people I guess well and also you have to be careful because if you spent too much time thinking about they where you come from roots history a childhood you may fall in the trap of nostalgia and romantic and all that and you know what keeping people in life is not what you've done what you've been but what you will be and what you will do so it's something that is it's a it's a dangerous exercise to think too much about our roots but the savage become natural so maybe I should say that I was shaped by first by my family my father was a builder a small builder you know it's quite important because you know when you are six seven eight nine year old and you start to prefer to go on site more than going on the country house that's a good beginning so I guess this is a part of the shaping it's a kind of there's so many things shaping people especially in the childhood in in a teenage and and then of course I guess see it's been shaping me seeing the same that I was born in a city of seawater salty water in general and then you grew up with this not big city quite small in Dussel an apple and you keep going up and down walking watching you know romantically watching the sea and this is like a mysterious place to go you know one day you know so you grew up with this idea to run away one day and to discover the rest of the world this is a quite interesting invitation to discovery it's a natural it's not just an invitation to Runaways also is also about light especially Mediterranean Sea is about light is about the sound is about taste is about vibration is about voices because the melon is like is like a soup it's not the sea every time is like like like a consumer of different cultures and from north to African to East and Western Spanish so in some way this is probably another thing shaping the sea I don't know I can go on forever maybe maybe the city where I I'm I was born and I grew up with he's a special place because Genoa is a very old city is a city of stone like a kind of we understand why people were navigating and then come back home they were finding a good protection in the city in the little Street narrow street so so much the sea was open and vast so much the city was kind of protective so stone and water are the two element creating a place a city of see the stone on ground and the water on the sea so it's also you know there's something and when you talk about stone and sea and you talk about the arm where you talk about ships and the ships also very interesting because they should don't touch ground they float you I think somebody said and the thief was right that when you are eight nine year old you already have got everything you need in the life you know you have been trapping under the skin the essence of your identity and and and this is not the romantic idea so it's quite true I think it's quite true the truth is that that is when you live your local war very intensively when is so intense when desire are so intense they remain and so that local become yeah Universal it's no more local it's your identity that you keep with you and then of course you keep growing I'm not seeking large psychologist you know I but you know I think that this is what happened when then you are eighteen nineteen then there are different values that come over and the different value on what we normally call cultural value and social they are two different things that come to help in also invention in all formation you start the store shines you do something you just not to watch you say oh my god I made it you know yes you find this mysterious thing that is creativity and this is not normally when you are nine ten eleven is more like when fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen so invention the pleasure of discovery the pleasure of understanding the beauty and the excellence of the world that is wrong you historical architecture and the culture and painting and art and music that's great and equally great is understanding that society is a very interesting community so you know you understand the value of Arvid talking to people listening to people understanding people discussing with people anga changing with people those value come a bit later and of course they shape you for sure for sure because I remember when I was a student in Milan and I was what 22 23 24 year old this when you start to wonder about the city you walk in the street you talk to people discover the sky you discover rivers forests see the vast 'ti of the world so there are so many thing that come to make you and friends and friends and the crossing frontiers so that you start a friend that are not especially doing the same thing you are doing you start a new friend that write writers or poets or musician oh I don't know what some filmmakers photographer and then you start to mix in this beautiful boy a best that is the creativity and art and beauty you start to mix everything so it is so difficult to judge what has been most important all this the child the teenage or when you start becoming more civic person so you start to understand the value one thing is for sure that architecture is everything come together you're very shaped by craftsmanship by your hometown but at some point when you were young men you begin to travel to study abroad to discover the world how important is traveling and meeting other cultures and meeting the world for the socialization of an architect it is so important to family it's important because you know what what happened by traveling you get away from what you are doing and so you start a revision that is more than touch it you know even if making a fresco or painting all mosaic you need to go very close to stay very close to the mosaic you need to work on and then from time to time you have to go away you have to take distance you have to take 2-3 meter maybe four maybe five maybe ten meters on the stand and then you go back so trolley for me this is that you get away from the picture you get away from from what you are doing and then you can see you can understand you take distance it's and also it's really important for Italian especially because you know Italy I I think it's well I love my country but of course I love all the country of Europe I'm feel European when asked people ask me where are you from I say from Europe but the reason why I love Italy especially because Italy is profoundly beautiful for sure and beauty is something you get used to so if you don't go away if you don't travel you don't even understand how lucky you are to be born in Italy how lucky you were to be born in a place of culture I'm not just talking about Italy I'm talking about our war civilize the world people young people should travel to understand our lucky day to be born in a place where you live on the shoulder of giants you live on the freedom that was built up in centuries you know the Civic value are important and civic value beauty and all this coming together so travel is important also because you get by getting away you take distance especially young people should do that because they take this and then they discover how lucky they've been to be born in a civilized place so it's saying it's a part of them and us of course is important to understand diversity and to understand that diversity is a value it's not a problem diversity is one it is the way to to grow and to learn and and and to steal to take well stealing I know is not nice but at one condition if the condition is that you give back it's not that bad stealing I'm taking you know I we have so many young people in the offices here in general very well and I want it because they are coming we have a little foundation and we have every year trained about 20 people charming young people from everywhere in the world and they stay with us six months and what they tell them all the time take take take away don't wait for us to give you take but possibly give back one day but this idea that traveling make make possible this that you know the people you see things and you and you bring home you bring with you you put in a memory in the back of the brain there is a special place for memory and you trap in that storage of pictures you drop so many things so so it is so important for all those reason it's it's not this is it's not because it means being a tourist is good of course my not but because it makes you a better person a person that is more open to understand learning language by the way learning language tolkien language is very important because well I'm not very special one but I speak three languages and I think is essential maybe three or four language is not that bad because then talking language means that you understand better what you are talking about what what is happening so I think this this is a very important it's for one of the most important thing and a certain age and you know what happened by the way at my age I still travel but I have a very funny life because I live mainly in path but they spend every every month at least one week in New York Los Angeles in that part of the world and one week in general or traveling so else but it's very funny because as an architect a set age when you travel you feel ohm everywhere that's very funny and next Saturday I go to New York when I'm New York I'm a New Yorker when I go to Berlin I'm A Berliner when I go to annoy I'm very Italian I'm from Vietnam and this very simple why because as an architect you cannot be a tourist you need to understand people you need to know you need to listen and you don't just listen to people you also listen to place because place I have a story to tell a big story but we have to listen so you know traveling as an architect is never travelling in the surface it's also in the surface because you need but then you need to be you need to love the place where you are and so if you love that place you know you feel you were born in 1937 so when you started traveling as a young man it was still the Europe that was in the wake of the Second World War I was a European ruins do you think that this shaped your perspective and your motivation to become an architect to build things up yes certainly but the main motivation was very simple my father was a builder I got to be a builder that's end of transmission that was the simple thing and actually I got to become probably more like an engineer more than an architect but because also I wanted to run away from home I prefer to be architect because then I got to go somewhere else that's all that was the study so this was number one I got to become like in a city like it growing a circus you become an acrobat if your father is an acrobat you become a pourable so it's very simple but of course then you start on this NY being a builder architect builder a civic person why is this important yes it's about building is about construction is Bowery construction but of course when you are eight or nine years old you don't think about reconstruction when you are that age at the end of the war I was I was seven or eight year old at that age the only important thing that every day is much better than the day before so you grow up with this idea that time going makes things better simple the food everyday is bit better and the streets are more clean and more there is more smiling and your father is more relaxing and you know the food is better everything you know so you draw with this mad idea and that time going makes things ruta but that is normally called optimism that is by the way one essential part of being a cadet for sure that's for sure so you draw with this idea but this is more instinctive you don't have to think about that you bring still now you know see now when something Trump or I think that at the end it will be better something will happen but but there is one thing anyway I have to say that I have to say something about this that after when you grow up you realize that building making building for people is a very decent gesture of peace it's exactly opposite of demolition of the structure and then you find that maybe something comes back in your memory from that moment because you you I didn't suffer about the wall myself when you are five six year old you don't suffer your real parents they take care of you but but at the end of the day you draw with this pacifistic idea that making good building is a gesture of peace you make building that become a place for people to gather to stay together and to discover tolerance and to enjoy diversity so this is what you are as an actor you make place for people to stay together and so in some way it's true I mean being born in the war after the war maybe not immediately after that but in the time you grow up with this idea that it's always there war must be abolished there's nothing else abolished slavery was abolished you know sorry thing is absolutely clear you grow up with this idea and making building good building is it Civic gesture it's a gesture of peace and continuing down this Lane you grew so old that you experienced the breakdown of the division of Europe the breakdown of the Berlin Wall and then you were the architect forming the potsdamer platz which was a ground divided by east and west and you started kind of filling up this space this empty space well you find yourself if I like him and if you find yourself in the right moment in the right place you find yourself very much in connect with those things you know as an architect you always witness a moment you don't change the history I get the don't change the history by they witness the change of the history in in some way even even such pompidou not far away from here was a change in history but we didn't change the history but some something like that got to happen this at the moment so and it's something like falling the the wall of Berlin got to happen and it did happen suddenly in 89 so of course this was a competition as usual because everything must be competition and everything has been a competition my life but then was a competition like Babu was a competition everything is a competition why not so it's true you find yourself in the place where you don't change the history but you you witness the change in these three and this is true for many many many things I mean even now even now in New York we are working with Columbia University Arlen West Harlem that is the north periphery of minato and we are working on new campus and a piece of design we are doing now is a global center for all the issue that are all the global issue from water to clean water to energy to micro banking and all that and this is also in fundamentally making building for something that happened because the world is ready to make a plea so you know it's you you you of course you don't change the history for sure but you give a shape to the change you make a building that our shelter for the change for that change and that's a reason why making public buildings so important we have just finished in this in this town in Paris the new hours of justice you know where this is known the north of Paris is in probably very close to the most dangerous value of Paris the Rafael Palace is publicly she send any the not and the idea what that is not my idea of it was politically a good political choice the deal was to make is so important piece of public life like also justice with 2,000 judges and ten thousand people every day not in the center of the city but a day in the periphery of the city and this is another big thing happening and of course you are not the one making making this inevitable Easter is making this inhibitor because city must take care of the peripheries because this is their future or the end if they are not careful so but as an architect and if you don't spend time in in distribute things then then you UN by finding yourself in those positions [Music] let's talk about architecture we already mentioned that you were growing up by the sea and if I look at a sailing ship there's a certain lightness about it and you can find other issues like you're discovering new frontiers you're seeing the light and the horizon the play of light and looking at your architecture I also besides lightness I discover a certain sense for craftsmanship for engineering and at the same time I would have a hard time saying there's a handwriting or approach that always repeats itself it's very individual buildings that you have done it's a very funny profession architecture because in some way of course is art but it's art at the frontier between art and science and so many things you know being occupied mean that you have to be a good builder social you need to be good craftsmen you need to know how to put things together you need to know how to fight against the force of gravity you need to know how to put things to do so you need this that you can call technicality but it's not just technicalities more than that is innovation is it the art of making building but it doesn't it's not enough because in the same time you are not just a builder you are also a civic person so you make sure for human beings and human communities and this become even more interesting because then you make building that out for people to stay together and to share values that is the beginning of them maybe making a better world so this is more social is more about sometime about protests about protests as well you know I'd say and this small social but it's not enough because you know you can be good builder you go for you do for a good reason but then you're still looking for something that is almost impossible to grab oh that is beauty poetry it's not something good to talk about too much or that because the point is one of those things that disappear as soon as you talk about that you know so but to be honest of course you look for that look for that beauty is not just a cosmetic value Beauty is a very profound idea has to do with so many things is to do with discovery with the wit with with light with space with compression with expansion with shadow and light and shadow has to do with so many and the sense of lightness maybe eventually with what something that is called language and language is something and come to nobble in French you say that you cannot miss but doesn't matter you can be good right but if you don't know how to put words one after those if you don't know how to put air between words and written well you should better change profession you know the same things I feel makeup you know every art as a different language but language is essential even if you are very good if you are very inventive and you and you are doing something right but you don't know how to put this in language in the good language in other words if you're missing the capacity to create emotion then it doesn't work it's not enough so it's a very funny complicate job because you have to be a point at 9:30 in the morning a telecoil you must become a builder 11 you may need to be a social a social animal and maybe some time maybe you should also think about budget and running the team and maybe it will probably become psychologist because you are somebody in in any crisis in the office you have to talk to people we have so many young people so he also become a teacher maybe it's four o'clock and then you become again a point and then again and this is what you do so you don't like it you keep changing but you keep changing but just in the same of course and so this is what we call in France they feel Rouge the feel Rouge is the red line that is connecting all those things so you can keep changing like a good actor but at the end of the day you're just taking care about one thing that is the project that's that's what you're doing so you know it's a it's a very funny profession where you have to move from those probably it's quite the same for everybody I mean even if filmmakers like that I guess I guess every profession need that but architecture you need really need to jump from one to the other very quickly and we mean that the same hour you change function three or four times in this focus and the project I know two elements are very important for you one is kind of the drawings the sketchings and the modeling you're famous for that and the other one is that you're working with teams this is called a building workshop and you don't want it to grow beyond the hundred persons you want to know everybody so there's a certain familiarity in this house why are those elements the sketching the drawings the modeling and the teamwork so important I don't know maybe little snob maybe no it's part of your essence I mean first I I spent my day doing this sketching and touching things and you know because this is what is making me happy honestly there is nothing in generals in that I'm just happy I like I like to do that way the ID is also very good for the project and the idea of the team is very simple I am a social animal myself I grew up with the first occupation of university in Milan in the 60s well before May 68 in pies we have been occupying inversely in 62 63 64 so I grew up with this idea that you go around you talk to people and you try to understand and social life and the art of listening is part of the game so there's nothing theoretical about that it's just in my skin my and I have to say this is very enjoyable especially my age because in the office but we are not 100 unfortunately like they never tell me the truth actually more like I under 60 or something like that but anyway I still know people I still know people but in the office I have ten partners and I have 25 assets and some of those people are working with me since the 30 40 45 years Shuji schita in general is what you have been working with me 48 years you know and we don't even need to talk each other we just watch each other and we just make a gesture it comes it's kind of and also ethics are very important nobody here talk about ethics but of course is a kind of clear statement we don't do anything wrong we never do something that is not for co2 to project and to the ethic of the Persian of course so though this is is it is particularly enjoyable at my age because you create you have create and people help you to create I'm not the owner of the office by the way I'm I have my my part of the property but the other people share the property so but you enjoy a position where in the morning I come to the office I don't have to think about anything and the music starts you know the dance goes I come to the office and I I sit there I sit there I sit there sit there sit there and and the ping pong stop the ping pong start and this is wonderful and this is also because you know what creativity is only possible when you share creativity on the way and yeah nobody take accountancy who got the idea you know nobody but not without that it's a kind it became quite natural you are in the meeting you say thing you know what I say to young people please can you be can you say something stupid can you come on so I'll take the bravery take the color to come out you know what you what you need to be creative you just need to decide to become creative you just need to be to try and of course I keep telling young people don't worry anyway we stop you if you do something if you say something stupid don't worry but if you say ten things and the five of ten are not stupid is already good it is really quite good so this is the same sort of the teamwork and that it is absolutely clear on the sketch and on the modeling is very simple everybody used computer thanks God and we use computer of course we make a complicate jump every when the wards or peuta is a very good system too and but computer are bit stupid and you have to tell them exactly from where to where to go when you make a line from that point to that point but when you start a job you don't know exactly so what you do and you do this or this and the imperfection of that - is exactly what you need because is in proportion of the fact that you are the beginning so you are just exploring exploring and sometimes the end goes faster than the brain the computer need the brain to tell exactly the coordinates x epsilon x1 if someone and then you go from there to there but you don't know really this is the same thing when you when you write and you write doesn't matter if you write by computer by n doesn't matter but the beginning you just throw on the piece of paper idea I guess even filmmaking is like that actually I'm sure printmaking is also about that is about just beginning so the beginnings of a waste sketch and the model is also sketch the model is not the final thing the model is something that gives you the pleasure to watch to touch to think and to go from something to something else so there's a kind of pleasure but also more than pleasure is exploring you know there is a writer that I love very much and Margaret you're Xena she she said she wrote that in in a cruel world you need the bravery to watch in the dark at the beginning the beginning don't see the light you see that then you need to you need to stay there you need to stay the enough time and after why you start to see things this is also happening when you get in the dark at the beginning you don't see anything and they have to fly you start to say so this is a better session [Music] find a question at the end of a fulfilled life and still very active life in architecture you won all the prizes you have the famous houses that have gotten all the achievements all over the world what remains what sterols iike see is there an advice for young people how do you reflect upon your houses are their children spread all over the world what remains well what remain for me I don't know man - what you know in the setting is what keep you in in life is not what you've done but what you still have to do and what you have not done so this is for me for the other what we do is exactly what I think we should do I never been teaching in the school or university not because I don't trust University I think they're a great place for student but for a number reason I've never been teaching in school and I was too busy so the idea is a very simple instead of going to university we bring people to our office and this is kind of a modern interpretation of a very old idea that is called in Italian bodega la bodega Ruettiger is the place where the master of the old man used to teach young people not by telling not by but just a showing but just inviting to lunch or to to the table come and behave well but understand by doing because you know the school can I can teach a lot of things and thanks God the school when they're good they do very well by they can they cannot teach emotion they cannot teach joy enjoyment or when you are a nap you know so even people young people in the office for six months this is what we do but bodega in the bodega bodega is something possible to translate I cannot translate in English it's like learning by doing something like that you know but when they can you know and anything for this type for Sigma on the first month they are lost they don't even understand but then they start understand that this job is made of emotion sometimes you you you you must be you must fight you must fight sometimes sometimes I enjoying whatever you are enjoying why ever you are not enjoying you know what what is the what is fine what is the so people and the young people understand the complexity of this of this of this profession but there is little I can I can I can do beyond that it is quite a lot firstly we cannot do with thousand million people but we do we do for 420 people here we have done that for 15 years that makes already 300 people we keep going like that and if you go around the office you will find somebody coming from Africa come somebody come from South America from China from all around the world we have 19 15 or 20 University that every we selected a select actually somebody to send to us we have a little foundation that we pay for we don't ask money from anybody we just because we are open office and we are working the way we are working I mean we we we put part of our asset today so that's what we do so it's same what what you can tell the young people is not just one thing there are so many things but one thing for sure this profession is about making a better world and making better world is ez is certainly making place for people to meet and to stay together but he's also looking for beauty because you know beauty is something difficult to find difficult to grabber is like the bird of paradise goes away you try to but the arm is too short you can't grab but if you can grab a bit of beauty and you put in the in in in the space in a building for people that become a quite interesting way to to to make people better people because this is what up does and beauty beauty in the in a normal sense not just cosmetic beauty as an art of discovery and art of music the art or architecture art of filmmaking the art of science if you did a plant and beauty can change the world it can it will do one person by time of course but it will do it [Music]

Channel: Louisiana Channel

Views: 213,768

Keywords: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum, Ren, Renzo Piano, Architect, Architecture, Centre Georges Pompidou, The Shard, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Potsdamer Platz, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, Pritzker Architecture Prize

Id: vLkfAkVJtyc

Length: 45min 19sec (2719 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2018