White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 12There is undoubtedly a relationshipbetween size of firm and investment inresearch and development, andtherefore innovation andcompetitiveness. Clearly with the Italianmodel of firm, architects encounterdifficulty in innovating. For the samereason they find it hard to participate ininternational competitions and tenders,partly because they run into obstaclesdue to shortcomings in information,language skills and in understandinglocal regulatory frameworks. Someuseful information for practising inEurope is available on the site of theConsiglio Nazionale ArchitettiPianificatori Paesaggisti Conservatori lxviibut the Ministry for Foreign Tradecurrently does not provide supportabroad for architects who take part ininternational competitions becausearchitectural firms are not classed ascommercial enterprises.Market and ReputationBut a reputation in architecture is notachieved only on the grounds ofturnover and number of employees, thecriteria used by the Building Designranking in which few architecturalpractices are mentioned for the qualityof their research and experimentation.In the top 100, in addition to Foster &Partners (Pritzker 1999 and RIBA GoldMedal 1983), ranked 5th, and OMA –Rem Koolhas (Pritzker 2000 and RIBAGold Medal 2004), 40th, we findHerzog & De Meuron (Pritzker 2001and RIBA Gold Medal 2007), 51st,Grimshaw 71st, Chipperfield 76th andCoop Himmelblau 83rd.But there are no other architects whohave won major international awards,such as the Pritzker Prize, the RIBAGold Medal, or the UIA Prize. Amongthose missing are Frank Gehry (Pritzker1989, RIBA 2000), Renzo Piano(Pritzker 1998, RIBA 1989 and UIA2002), Zaha Hadid (Pritzker 2004),Tadao Ando (Pritzker and UIA 2005and RIBA 1997) Richard Rogers(Pritzker 2007 and RIBA 1985) and JeanNouvel (Pritzker 2008 and RIBA 2001).When the criteria change and weconsider the reputation of practices inthe classification of the Top 100 “mostadmired practices”, again in the 2008World Architecture, we find that RenzoPiano is ranked second, after NormanFoster, and the top ten names includeHerzog & De Meuron, SantiagoCalatrava and Frank Gehry.Significantly, we find Herzog & DeMeuron and Norman Foster in bothrankings and the latter features on thecover of the review as “Mr. Motivator”.This testifies to the fact that these firmsreconcile experimentation and businessorganisation.It is equally significant that Renzo Pianois admired because of his innovativesolutions aimed at improving the qualityof life, respect for the environment, andthe reduction of harmful emissions inthe atmosphere. His reputation is basedon the Italian model of creativity whichpursues objectives such as sociallyshared architectural quality endowedwith value and has a vision thatinterprets the context to createinnovative works inserted harmoniouslyin the historical, landscape andenvironmental context.WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 284