Renzo Piano's Six Stories: From Pompidou to Shard, the Making of Italy's Master Architect

Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi traces Renzo Piano's career through six narratives, revealing how the Genoese architect transformed from a reviled 'ragazzaccio' to Italy's most celebrated living architect. The Centre Pompidou (1971, with Richard Rogers) initially brought him exile from Italian academia—Manfredo Tafuri dismissed him in two lines, and Vittorio Gregotti accused him of serving globalized capitalism. Decades later, Piano is a senator for life, praised by former critics like Francesco Dal Co (Tafuri's pupil) and Fulvio Irace. His post-2016 earthquake reconstruction approach in Marche—'com'era e dove era'—drew criticism only from Paolo Portoghesi. At the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, curator Cino Zucchi included Piano among 85 Italian architects but excluded Massimiliano Fuksas, now the new 'black sheep'. The Shard in London (2012, with Broadway Malyan) exemplifies Piano's dual communication strategy: verbal storytelling (framing the skyscraper as a 'shard') and formal design that embodies the concept. The Pompidou, originally planned with movable floors and facade screens, ultimately became a symbol of modernity through representation rather than full realization. Piano's 'Vulcano buono' shopping center in Nola (2007) demonstrates his mastery of branding—naming architecture like consumer goods. Puglisi argues Piano's key lesson for Italian architects is 'form follows concept', prioritizing narrative and marketing over pure form.