Forum A+P 08

Auditorium Parco Della Musica Rome, 1994-2002
Auditorium Parco Della Musica Rome, 1994-2002
National Center for Science and Technology Amsterdam, 1992-1997
National Center for Science and Technology Amsterdam, 1992-1997
222
putting yourself in the right state to create
is even more difficult. You need peace and
quiet, but also tension; calm, but energy too;
time, but speed as well.” Piano hastened to
add that the office is no hermitage, first of all
because a lot of people from many different
countries work there, and also because it
communicates in real time with the rest of
the world. Placed between the mountains
and the sea, the workshop stands on terraced
slopes, and is made almost entirely of glass,
looking very much like the greenhouses that
share hillsides in this part of the Riviera. The
plants are inside and out, blending into the
work spaces
Colin Amery, Architectural Critic says,
looking like a giant glass butterfly that has
delicately landed on the cliff—this is the
terraced studio that is part of the land and
the sea. UNESCO scientists are growing
bamboo and agave and cane on the ancient
man made terrain and every one working in
the studio is close to greenery and conscious,
because of the glass and louvre roofs, of the
changing quality of natural light. Although
the studio environment is experimental
it is also the safe harbour to which the
adventurous architects and engineers return
from their world-wide wanderings. Because
of the continual advances in the technology
of communication the workshop is in touch
with the world. What Piano has called
“technological ubiquity” makes the world
smaller and simultaneously allows the
possibilities of working close to nature.
On the other side of the world in
Noumea, New Caledonia, Piano is doing
the Tjibaou Cultural Center, which he
describes as “the most reckless of my many
ventures into other fields.” He explained