Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Renzo Piano is an architect whose work is of exceptional relevance to our times. He came to international prominence as the architect, with Richard Rogers, of the Pompidou Centre in Paris. For Piano, this is a building that climaxed and closed an era rather than opened a new one. The work of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop is now characterised by its sensitive and resonant responses to genius loci and local tradition as well as by its uncontrived mix of traditional materials and techniques with those from the leading edge of technology. Although each project in some respect pushes technology to new limits, it always does so in a way that enhances and help regenerate historic fabric and natural features. It is this ecological, evolutionary and humanistic vision of an architecture that participates in all aspects of local context and culture, as well as in the unfolding future, that gives Piano's architecture its unparalleled and timely significance. It also accounts for the striking heterogeneity of his works being built around the world from bases in Genoa, Paris and Osaka - work that is as global in its sympathies as in its geographic spread. In this and succeeding volumes, the architecture of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop is presented clearly and comprehensively, and includes many new photographs and drawings. Peter Buchanan's authoritative text is descriptive, and insightful as it draws out the general significances of the works and relates them to one another, The schemes in this volume are also presented in the context of earlier work by Piano prior to the founding of the Building Workshop, and to the long and personal evolution of his present outlook. Introducing the book is an essay that elaborates the spirit and exceptional pertinence of this approach and the resultant architecture." - Front cover.