Cersaie 2010: Conferences and Seminars Saper fare architettura: Central Saint Giles Renzo Piano Building Workshop/Fondazione Renzo Piano
Friday 01 October - 11.00 a.m.
Palazzo dei Congressi, Sala Italia
Nearly forty years have gone by since the foundation of Piano & Rogers, the firm with which Renzo Piano won the competition to design the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and nearly twenty years since the creation of Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the architecture business and philosophy that today has 130 employees working in offices in Paris, Genoa and New York. The 73-year-old Genoese architect Renzo Piano speaks clearly through his international projects, the latest of which is illustrated by the architects who played a part in its implementation. Central Saint Giles was opened in May this year and is being officially presented for the first time at an international exhibition. At the meeting moderated by Aldo Colonetti, visitors will be able to gain a small glimpse of the nearly 10 years of work that lies behind the creation of Central Saint Giles from the talks given by Lia Piano and by two architects closely involved in the design of the building, Maurits van der Staay, the project manager, and Lorenzo Piazza, a young architect working at RPBW. It is a multifunctional complex extending over a total area of 60,000 square metres, including 39,000 square metres of offices, built on the site of an old dilapidated brick building, the historic headquarters of the British secret services.
Biographical notes Aldo Colonetti (Bergamo, 1945) Philosopher, historian and art, design and architecture theorist. Since 1998, Scientific Director of the IED Group (Milan, Turin, Rome, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona, São Paulo); Vice-president of the Francesco Morelli Institute – European Design Institute. Since 1991, Editor-in-chief of “Ottagono”; Vice-president of Editrice Compositori. Author of essays, curator of exhibitions, organiser of cultural projects and events, in Italy and abroad. Design and architecture consultant to the Culture Office of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In 2001 he received an MBE award from Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II. Since March 2009, member of the Italian National Design Council, under the auspices of the Ministries for Culture, Foreign Affairs and Productive Activities. Since May 2009, member of the Board of Directors of CLAC – Centro Legno e Arredo Cantù.
Biographical notes Born in Zeist, Netherlands, in 1960, studied at the Delft Technical University in the Netherlands. He joined the Paris Building Workshop in 1994, and he is an associate since 2000. He worked on the Berlin Potsdamerplatz Project until 1997. From 1997 until 2002 he worked as project architect on the 3rd phase of the Lingotto factory conversion in Turin, including the Politecnical School, and the Meridien hotel extension. From 2000 until 2002 he worked as lead architect on the Pinacoteca Agnelli, at Lingotto. From 2003 until 2010 he was associate in charge of the Saint Giles project in London.
Biographical notes Born in 1981 in Savona, Italy, he graduated in architecture from Genoa University in 2006. He joined the RPBW in 2006 for a six-month internship with the Renzo Piano Foundation Internship Program. He has worked in the Paris office, ever since collaborating on various projects among which Central St. Giles in London and a Congress Center in Gandia, Spain. He is now working on the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens.
