Leseprobe zu »Auf der Suche nach Atlantis«

CARLO and
RENZO
PIANO
Looking for
ATLANTIS
CHRONICLE OF AN ARCHITECT
A JOURNEY FOR THROUGH YOUNG ARCHITECTURE TRAVELLERS FOR LOOKING YOUNG DREAMERS
FOR THE BEAUTY
illustrated by Tommaso Vidus Rosin

CONTENTS
LOOKING FOR ATLANTIS
by Carlo Piano 6
LET'S GO!
The beginning of the journey 10
A VESSEL IN THE VALLEY
The San Giorgio Bridge in Genoa 14
THE PLACE WHERE EVERYTHING CHANGES
The port of Genoa 24
THE ISLAND THAT WAS NOT THERE
Kansai airport 36
KANAK WORLD
The cultural center of Nouméa 48
CHALLENGING THE PACIFIC OCEAN
A workshop lesson among the waves 58
THE LAWN THAT FLIES OVER THE MUSEUM
California Academy of Science 66

DISCOVERING THE BIG APPLE
THE "NEW YORK TIMES"
the Morgan Library, the Whitney Museum
and Columbia University 78
A SPLINTER THAT FADES INTO THE SKY
The Shard skyscraper in London 92
A SPACESHIP IN PARIS
The Beaubourg Cultural Center 102
THE LAKE IN THE HEART OF BERLIN
Potsdamer Platz after the fall of the Wall 114
MARE NOSTRUM
Beauty, memories and mysteries of the Mediterranean 124
BEAUTY AGAINST WAR
The paediatric hospital in Uganda 132
A FLYING CARPET OVER THE SEA
The cultural center of the Niarchos Foundation in Athens 142
THE END OF THE JOURNEY?
Ithaca, the island of Ulysses 154

6

LOOKING
FOR ATLANTIS
by Carlo Piano
In the confusion of my daughter Elsa’s room, there was a diary with a red cover
tucked between T-shirts and junk under her bed and marked by the streaks of the
salt. It immediately intrigued me, even because it was closed with a padlock, and
then I asked her what it was. So she explained to me that it tells of her journey
with my father (and therefore her grandfather) Renzo around the oceans of the
world. And that’s the reason for all the salt residues that make it look like an
ancient parchment closed in a bottle and entrusted to the waves.
They travelled for several months on board a ship: Renzo wanted to leave and
look for Atlantis, a mystery that have tormented people for millennia. It’s just
what you know too. You have surely already heard of it: a beautiful, rich and
perfect city that, according to legend, was swallowed by the waters in ancient
times. So her grandfather asked Elsa to accompany him on this adventure and
they set sail. If in the end they found, in some corner of the abyss, the submerged
kingdom I don’t know. We will read it together. It is not even known whether
Atlantis really existed. Certainly, its myth has always aroused questions and
curiosity, not to mention the thousands of literary works, video games and films,
which have made it one of the most exciting enigmas on the planet. It’s told
that even Christopher Columbus had left dreaming of finding Atlantis when he
discovered America.
I don’t know if that’s true, however Elsa and Renzo looked for it while traveling in
Asia, Oceania, America and many other places. They crossed distant and stormy
seas, visited places where my father, who is an architect, built his buildings. In his
long career he has braved earthquakes, hurricanes and even found bombs that
have remained unexploded since the Second World War. He met divers, scientists,
musicians, climbers, miners, tribal leaders and snake hunters. In his heart he
looked for Atlantis as a child, when he spent hours on the beach of Genoa
observing the horizon line, where the sky touches the sea. Since then his desire
was born, he is still convinced that Atlantis must be there somewhere.
When he was a child, my father often told me the story of Atlantis, as it has been
handed down by the Greek philosopher Plato. Beyond the Strait of Gibraltar there
would have been a rich and happy of great power. There the inhabitants, sons of
Poseidon, paid more attention to cultivate virtues than material goods. But over
time their divine part was overtaken by the human one, which as we know is full
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of defects. They degenerated. Plato says that they took the bad road of greed and
power. Zeus then punished them with tsunamis and cataclysms, so that Atlantis
sank within a night and a day.
Many people took his words seriously and many sought it. There are those who
claim it is in the Azores, while others suppose it is in the Sahara Desert where
once there was the sea. Over the centuries, the lost city has moved to the most
disparate places: from Antarctica to Palestine, from Scandinavia to Sardinia.
Someone points to the Island of Thera, which actually sank due to an eruption in
the fifteenth century before Christ. Someone else links Atlantis to the Bermuda
Triangle, where planes and ships are said to have mysteriously disappeared in
large numbers. There are also scholars who think differently: according to them,
it is an invention of Plato’s imagination who, as a philosopher, made it sink to
illustrate his political theories and to warn us about the transitory nature of luck.
My father doesn’t know where it is, but he wants to look for it because when he
gets something into his head, he’s really stubborn. He claims that Atlantis exists
and, even if it does not exist, it should be looked for. Because it is a beautiful idea
and it is the perfect destination for a trip. Because somewhere there must be.
Elsa will take care of telling you the whole story. I will limit myself to read the
pages of her diary. That pages, as we leaf through them, still smell of sea and
adventure.
8

PREFAZIONE
9

LET’S GO!
The beginning of the journey
My name is Elsa and I’m going to high school next year. As long as I pass the
eighth-grade exam, but I really hope to do it. I haven’t decided yet which school to
choose, but I’m thinking about the classical high school. The thing is, I like to read
whatever comes my way, from comics to novels and newspapers. My grandfather
also attended classical high school at Giuseppe Mazzini in Genoa, even though he
was not the first in his class and limped mainly in Greek and Latin. He confessed
to me himself.
What else can I reveal to you about me? I’m not that tall but they tell me I’m pretty
and I love animals. I love them all, even the tiniest insects (except mosquitoes),
fish and birds. But I have a weakness for dogs: maybe because I have one since I
was little and we grew up together.
His name is Sigfrid and he is a cross between a greyhound and a hound. In fact,
as a joke I say that a bracchero or a levracco, a dog breed that I invented. It is
white with brown spots scattered on the muzzle, it is splendid. He never misses
an opportunity to lick me, wag his tail and party.
What else? I would add that I admire Greta Thunberg and what she is doing. Why?
Because it took a little girl to make adults understand that we are following the
wrong path. That we cannot continue to exploit nature as we have done up to
now, otherwise nature will rebel. The world is our home and everything we have.
Pollution in cities, the sea infested with plastic, melting glaciers are signs that we
must not ignore. And then one more thing: I like rap and classical music. For the
rest you will get to know me better during this trip.
But let’s talk about the grandfather, there are many things to say about him.
Starting with the fact that once at school they even failed him. But he doesn’t take
it, on the contrary he thinks it did him good. He says he grew up with the idea that
you have to trust others thanks to the fact that he was a donkey in the classroom,
because he realized that there is always something to learn from others.
Everyone talks about working in a group. But I have always done it seriously.
And I still do it today in the office, where we are four, six, eight, and we work
all together.
The best hypothesis wins, from whoever it comes from, so when a building
we design is finished, you can no longer understand who put what in it.
The idea is very simple: you have to trust those you work with. We discuss,
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and sometimes we argue. These moments are often the most irritating, but
eventhe most successful.
His name is Renzo and he has been an architect for more than half a century. He
has designed many buildings around the continents: museums, concert halls,
airports, universities, hospitals, libraries. He built them in Italy, France, Greece,
Spain, Norway, Great Britain, Germany and also Japan, Russia, United States, New
Caledonia, Uganda… I have certainly forgotten some places, but it will come to my
mind along the way.
For example, do you know the Beaubourg in Paris, that building with the coloured
pipes? He did it when he was young with his friend Richard Rogers. Or the Shard,
the 300-meter-high skyscraper that rises up into the London sky? It was designed
by him too. And even the Genoa Bridge which was recently completed. He also
won the Pritzker Prize, which would be like a Nobel Prize in architecture. He has
four children: Carlo, who is my dad, and my uncles Matteo, Lia and Giorgio. I don’t
know if I’m right to say it but he married twice: the first with my grandmother
Magda and the second with Milly.
In addition to architecture, he has another great passion: sailing, and he goes
there every time his work leaves him some free time. The boat is called Kiribilli,
which in the aboriginal language means fishy place.
The wind, the waves and the silence are his refuge. Just think that when he was
more or less my age, he built a boat in the garage with his own hands. He was
sure he had taken the right measures, but then to take it out he had to break
down the door, and his father got very angry.
Maybe now you know us a little better. Grandpa Renzo and I are about to leave for
a long and adventurous sea voyage. We will set sail soon, the time to reach the
port from our grandfather’s study and set sail. His studio is suspended between
the mountains and the sea on a craggy slope between Genoa and Arenzano,
surrounded by greenery, transparent and bright like a greenhouse. He says it’s his
hot air balloon where he can look at things from above. It takes half an hour by
car to get to the pier where we will embark.
A few years ago, on Christmas Eve, my grandfather gave me a box of
constructions because he would be happy if I became an architect too. My father
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is not an architect, so he counts on his niece, who would be me. I have to be
honest: that time I would have preferred something more feminine as a gift, but
in any case, I am curious by nature and then I asked him: what does it mean to be
an architect? And he answered as follows.
Do you know, Elsina? Architect is an ancient profession such as hunting, fishing,
farming and exploring. After the search for food comes the search for a house.
At one point, the man, dissatisfied with living in caves that were uncomfortable,
ugly and damp, became an architect.
In short, according to him architecture is not only the art of building, but that of
responding to people’s needs and dreams. Nonno Renzo mainly designs public
places, in the sense of buildings where people meet, know each other and
stay together. As it happens at school. He claims they are strongholds against
barbarism. We all know who the barbarians were and what they did.
They are places of culture where the values of civilization are shared and culture
has always lit a spark in the eyes of those who are there.
And I agree with him because I am crazy for paintings, not all but the beautiful
ones, music, films and, as I said, also for books. I feel different after I finish
reading one, maybe that’s why I’m going to choose classical studies. Whether to
enrol in the faculty of architecture I will decide later.
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14

A VESSEL IN THE VALLEY
The San Giorgio Bridge in Genoa
To get to the port we have to cross the bridge that he has just finished building,
perhaps it would be better to say to rebuild. We are crossing it by car and he
tells me about when the old bridge collapsed on August 14, 2018. I remember it
too because all the newspapers and media talked about it, I was at the sea and
the image of that bridge remained impressed on me. It collapsed. I had passed
an infinite number of times back and forth on that bridge that was high, indeed
very high. It felt like being in heaven, just like now that we walk the new one on a
beautiful sunny day. It was an upsetting event because many people who went on
vacation died. But I don’t want to talk about this.
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Since then Genoa has been divided in two because the highway bridge, which
looked like the Brooklyn chewing gum bridge, jumped over the Polcevera stream
and joined two parts of the city. It was located right in the middle of the city,
between Levante and Ponente. After the collapse, the grandfather designed the
new bridge and everyone rolled up their sleeves to do it, so in less than two years
they rebuilt it much safer. This is not made of concrete like the old one but made
of steel and rests on pillars planted at the bottom of the valley.
It looks like a ship, one of those that continually enter and leave the port. It will
last thousands of years, grandfather Renzo always says. Like the bridges that the
Romans made and are still standing today. On a trip with the school I was on the
Milvian Bridge in Rome, they built it in stone and brick a hundred years before
Christ. So for years, if I’m not making a mistake, he has several more than two
thousand years and the Roman architects must have been really good.But that
of Genoa is made of steel, a metal alloy that the ancients had not yet invented.
The pieces of the bridge were made by the same men who build the great ships.
Ships as long as 3 or more football fields, as tall as 30-story buildings and as
heavy as 100,000 elephants. The grandfather says that those who know how to
build ships can do everything: cast, cut, weld, turn, bolt ...
Then they assembled the bridge piece by piece as if it were a construction game,
even though much more complicated. While they were demolishing the remains
of the old bridge, they were already pulling up the new one, which is 1,067 meters
long and consists of 19 spans, which are the horizontal parts of steel that are then
assembled and put together one after the other. Thus, they form what is defined
by the engineers as the deck. This bridge is supported by 18 reinforced concrete
pillars they call piles: they are 90 meters high but 45 meters sink into the ground
to hold them steady and another 45 meters come out to support the bridge.
The pillars resemble the bow of a steamship. They are planted at a distance of
50 meters, except for the three power plants, 100 meters from each other, which
must make a longer jump over the Polcevera and the railway tracks.
Grandfather Renzo says that this bridge is like a large white vessel moored in
the valley and that it crosses it putting one foot after the other and asking for
permission. It’s the same when you enter the house of other people politely.
Look at how it’s done? It’s simple, my grandfather explains to me, the concrete
piles rise to 45 meters and then receive, with a light support, the steel body of
the ship. The old bridge was 18 meters wide, this one reaches 30 meters. To do
this, it took 67,000 cubic meters of concrete, equivalent to the amount it takes
to build an Empire State Building and a half. The New York skyscraper famous
for the King Kong movie. And 24,000 tons of steel were needed, three times the
weight of that used for the Eiffel Tower.
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They are the sketches for the Genoa
Saint George Bridge. The shape of
the pillars really resembles the bow
of a steamer!All the sketches you
will see in this diary are made by my
grandfather Renzo.
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A thousand workers who came from every region of Italy and also from abroad
worked on the site. They did it without ever stopping, not even at Christmas or
Easter. The bricklayers, designers, excavators, crane operators and technicians
were organized in shifts: who worked underground, who in the yard, who high
up on the scaffolding, who inside the caisson, who above to make the road,
every day, 24 hours out of 24.
It was a construction site that never slept. I saw them building the bridge and
they all participated with enthusiasm, giving themselves a lot of work. It was
like watching a magic show: the day before there were only pieces of metal
scattered on the ground and the next day, as by magic, two huge cranes had
hoisted another portion of the bridge on the pillars. The grandfather claims that
pride can be felt on the construction site. Pride arises when you do something
important for the community and when you are part of a team, differences and
differences miraculously disappear. The fear of not succeeding also disappears.
A construction site is a team effort and building is a gesture of hope, trust and
peace.
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Grandfather often talks to me about working in a team and how important it is.
The other day, while we were studying the stages of the journey together, he
spoke as follows.
You have to have courage and take risks. I always say this to you guys: you often
have the fear of making a mistake and it is right, but you have to overcome the
fear of making mistakes and throw yourself, but to be able to throw yourself
into making mistakes it is good to work in a group because when you work in a
group there is a net of salvation, there are others.
A curious discovery was made on site when the old bridge was demolished: two
pigeon chicks were found inside a caisson during the course. They were fine
but Mom had flown out of the nest, probably frightened by the sound of the
pneumatic hammers. The workers fed them, because they were chirping and
looking for food, and then they took them to an animal welfare centre that took
care of them. They are probably flying in the clouds now.
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20

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Grandfather also explained to me that this is an intelligent bridge, a smart bridge,
say the engineers, because it absorbs the energy of the Sun during the day and
then returns it in the form of light during the night. On the edges, from one end
of the bridge to the other, photovoltaic panels were placed to produce the energy
to illuminate it without the need to attach to electricity. So it does not waste and
is ecological. But it’s not smart for that reason alone. There are robots that, like
sentinels, move back and forth on the tracks checking that the bridge is safe and
warn if any welding needs to be done or if there is a fault. The robots always clean
the solar panels and the windproof barrier, which is made of glass so passing
over the bridge you can enjoy the view. Among the systems that the experts have
devised there is also a system to remove the humidity inside the bridge and avoid
corrosion. Here we are near the sea and we must fight the saline condensation
that eats up the steel. They also thought about possible earthquakes: it is
isolated from the pillars by means of devices, like some kind of large springs,
which allow the bridge to move and then return to its place. All inventions that
are needed so that it can last forever, but according to the grandfather they are
not enough if there is not also love. He really speaks of love.
A bridge must last for thousands of years, but nothing lasts this long without
a little love. You have to love things to take care of them. In Japan, things last
a few thousand years because they are continually being maintained, because
they love them. Love is a romantic word, but I use it to emphasize that buildings
need affection. There is no building, not even in stone, that lasts a thousand
years without attention.
There is another important thing, indeed there will be because it is not over yet.
Under the new bridge, a large park will be created with lawns, areas where dogs
can run freely, bike paths, sports fields and botanical gardens. It will be beautiful,
I’m sure. But now it’s late and our ship is waiting for us at the dock.
It will accompany us in the search for Atlantis, precisely that of fairy tales. But
for grandfather Renzo it is not a fairy tale. He is convinced that the kingdom
submerged by the sea is hiding in some abyss. He thinks it really exists. On the
other hand, what can an architect dream of if not the perfect city?
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THE PLACE WHERE
EVERYTHING CHANGES
The port of Genoa
I am delighted to observe the Port of Genoa. It is the largest and most important
Italian port and also one of the oldest, because Genoa was one of the four maritime
republics together with Venice, Amalfi and Pisa. It’s always full of people and ships.
Nothing is quiet: the boats that float suspended on the water, the sailors, the
dockers, the passengers embarking for cruises. Even at night people work tirelessly
and the light beam from the lantern guides the ships into the darkness. The writer
Italo Calvino, who wrote “Barone rampante”, argued that the Genoese are divided
into two families: those who cling to the rock like limpets and those who can’t
wait to get out into the deep. Grandfather Renzo belongs to the second category
and maybe me too, because I can’t wait more.Cargo ships carrying containers are
moored along the quay, stacked like coloured Lego bricks. I wonder where they go
and where they come from. I imagine exotic places, stormy oceans and flat calm.
I imagine the seafarers who are on board: commanders, cooks, ship crews, radio
operators, officers who have travelled around the world.
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We are waiting for boarding sitting on a bollard. My grandfather tells me about
when he was a child and his father Carlo, therefore my great-grandfather who
has the same name as my father, brought him here. They came for a walk every
Sunday after mass.
The Port of Genoa was completely different, there were no containers. To load
and unload the bales of goods, camalli (Genoese term of Arab origin, it refers
to the labourer who worked on ships in the port of Genoa) made them fly
suspended from their hooks, and even the ships seemed to fly over the water.
The cars in the arms of the cranes and the cows, with their sling under their
bellies, bellowed in terror, dangling their paws in the void.
His eyes light up when he talks about the Port in the past: it was like a factory
and it had to be wonderful. I think the idea of building the Bigo at the old port,
the seven-arm crane that raises the panoramic lift, comes from those Sunday
walks. Since then, he has sought lightness in building, almost defying the force
of gravity. Here my grandfather in 1992, when I was not even born and the 500th
anniversary of the discovery of America was celebrated, designed the Aquarium
and the Bigo that recalls the old cranes of transport ships. Climbing the Bigo is
exciting: its structure supports the large circular and rotating panoramic lift that
allows you to enjoy a 360-degree panorama from a height of about 40 meters. On
one side the grey slate roofs of the city, on the other side the boundless sea.
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The Aquarium, I don’t know if you have already visited it, is one of the richest in
Europe: manatees, all kinds of sharks, seals and penguins swim in its tanks. There
are 15,000 animals of 400 different species including fish, marine mammals,
birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. There is also a large tactile tank
where all visitors can pet the rays. The grandfather says it is a living museum
and there is the Biosphere too: a huge sphere of glass and steel, located in the
sea next to the Aquarium, which houses butterflies, iguanas, ferns and various
species of tropical plants.
Grandfather Renzo is observing the coming and going of the ships which is
incessant. Oil tankers, container ships, tugboats, barges, ferries and merchant
ships constantly change over, reflecting in the water of the port.
The port is the place of exoticism, it always has been. A piece of the world that
comes to visit you at home. Here there is a little bit of Japan, a piece of Russia,
the Philippines or Korea. Have you read the names of the ships? In Cyrillic,
Greek, Chinese, Arabic and in languages you can’t even understand. There is a
world that moves.
While the gusts of wind ruffle my hair, grandfather Renzo carries on explaining
to me that the port is never stationary, but always in motion. He says it’s like an
imaginary and fantastic city, where buildings move.
A few years ago the port was different, and in an hour it will be another and
tomorrow another one, when this vessel leaves, another cargo of cereals will
take its place or perhaps the Pequod, Moby Dick’s whaling ship.
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The ship awaiting us is called Ammiraglio Magnaghi, named after Giovan Battista
Magnaghi who was a famous scholar of the sea. It is an oceanographic vessel
of the Navy. It does not have cannons on board and does not make war: it deals
with mapping the seabed in order to be able to draw the nautical maps that are
needed by the captains to trace the routes. Sometimes this boat is used to locate
and recover sunken boats. I’ve always wondered how many wrecks are lying at
the bottom of the sea. It is estimated, my grandfather tells me, that there are
more submerged ships than there are on the surface. The sea has been collecting
carcasses for millennia, long before the sinking of the Titanic, and there are more
than three million scattered across the oceans.
This white ship is 82 meters long and has 15 officers as a crew and another
120 people including non-commissioned officers, deputies and sailors. It lacks
nothing to find out where Atlantis hides, it is equipped with the most modern
scientific equipment: depth sounder, side scan sonar, geodimeter, tidal gauge,
bathythermograph, core drill, current meter and various probes.It is a ship at the
service of men who work at sea as the motto carved on the emblem says: Nauta
pro nautis, which in Latin means that it navigates for sailors. Grandpa Renzo
explained this to me too, because I haven’t started studying Latin yet.
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Finally, we go up the staircase where the commander Ottavio Patulli and the
boatswain Giobatta Molinari welcome us: two sea wolves who have travelled
the oceans exploring every type of seabed and pit. They show us our cabin: two
bunk beds, a small sink and the bathroom shared with the officers. I will have
to adapt and forget the comforts of home but it doesn’t scare me, what I fear
most is instead of being seasick and not being able to write this diary. But the
boatswain told me it’s only a matter of time: eventually everyone gets used to the
roll and pitch of the ship. I didn’t know what they were and I went to check the
nautical manual among the books in the on-board library: the roll “determines the
alternative inclination of the ship in the transverse direction from one side to the
other, leaning on one side and then straightening up and then fold over on the
opposite side ». The pitch is instead “the alternative inclination of the ship in the
longitudinal direction towards the bow and aft”.
The captain has given the order to leave the moorings and the ship mutters and
moves away from the port, while the Lantern is getting smaller and smaller. Soon
we will be surrounded only by the sea and it will be a long navigation because
we have to reach Osaka Bay, in Japan where grandfather Renzo built the Kansai
airport.
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If the Suez Canal had not been closed, the journey would have been shorter,
cutting down to the Red Sea. Instead we had to circumnavigate Africa by rounding
the Cape of Good Hope and then crossing the Indian Ocean. Our current position
is longitude 7 ° 18’36 “South, latitude 72 ° 24’16” East. We are in the middle of
nowhere, between the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky, off the coast of
the Chagos Islands. During the past few days I didn’t wrote because, although we
have always encountered quite good weather, it took me a while to get used to
not being with my feet on dry land.
I have seen seas and waves of all kinds, so much so that now I wonder what
colour the sea really is. We are convinced that it is blue or light blue. But that’s
not true: there are also turquoise, indigo, grey, green, emerald and transparency.
Under the clouds it is leaden, in the black darkness, flakes of gold seem to float
there at sunrise and sunset. Sometimes it is whitish with foam. Even the winds
change it, when the sirocco blows it is silvery, the north wind makes it glassy
instead. The truth, in my opinion, is that the sea has an indefinable colour. Each
wave has its own unique and different light.
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During the navigation me and the grandfather talked for a long time. We speak
well at sea because there is silence and times are more relaxed, there is no rush
that haunts us in the city. He told me that he began to be an architect as a child,
building sand castles on the beach of Pegli, the district of Genoa where he was
born. And he confessed to me that even today he likes to make sand castles
because it’s not a question of age: you can have fun even as adults, because sand
castles help you think like children.
He also explained to me how, according to him who has thought about it for a
long time, we need to build the perfect sand castle, which is not an exercise in
war but a game with the waves. First you need to stand still on the shoreline, at
the edge of the beach, and observe how much the wave rises and how much it
descends. He listed four points that I have noted in this notebook.
1. The relationship with water is more important than the appearance of the
castl an ephemeral operation. Do not have too many expectations
because it is destine this reason, it should not be placed too
close to the sea, but not too far away: the relationship with the
waves and the study of their movements is one of the funniest aspects
of the process. It sounds more complicated than it is but, on the
contrary, it is simple and instinctive.
2. Make a sort of ditch with your hands where the sand has been left
wet by the waves. The trench should not be deeper than about
30 centimetres. Groups the sand in the shape of a small mountain about
60 centimetres high, with an inclination of the side walls of about 45
degrees.
3. Dig a groove that connects the groove around the castle with the sea:
it will allow the waves to enter. The moment when the water invades the
moat and makes it alive is magical. If you have chosen the right location
for the castle, you can stand and watch the water flow for up to 10-15
minutes. To capture the image in memory, close your eyes as the water
enters the moat.
4. The final touch is that of a flag or whatever else you can find, to be placed
on the top of the castle. It will serve to make it more visible to people
running on the beach. Then go home without looking back.
Grandpa advises not to turn around after finishing it, because the castle is
destined to disappear and it would be a disappointment to see it fall apart. It’s
better to get away, keeping the memory of it.
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THE ISLAND THAT
WAS NOT THERE
Kansai airport
We are approaching the shores of Japan. During the crossing
I saw the sea in all its faces: flat, impetuous, wavy, stormy
and bubbling. I heard it lapping and bellowing. We passed
Sri Lanka accompanied by a calm wind, to then take the
straits between Java and Sumatra, cross the island of Hainan
and go up towards Taiwan. We would be alone in a salty
desert if, sometimes, we did not come across a fishing boat
hunting for tuna. I had never been there but grandfather
Renzo knows this part of the world well. In Osaka Bay he
designed the airport about thirty years ago when I was not
even born. On an island that did not exist and which they
created out of nothing by cutting the top ofthree hills
to get the necessary gravel and rock. Grandfather
remember.

Japan is very crowded and Osaka had no space for a new airport so they
had decided to do it by the sea. An artificial island was built, a non-floating
platform, but well supported on the bottom and well stabilized by thousands
of poles deeply embedded in the seabed. This island was built in a surprisingly
short time. So short, that when I made the first inspection it didn’t exist yet.
While he’s speaking, he follows with his eyes the low and gentle waves that come
towards us, caressing the prow of the Magnaghi.
It all started with a boat trip with Nori and Peter, * we spent an afternoon there.
I asked to visit the place, the Japanese told me that it made no sense, that
there was nothing to see but the sea and that the island did not yet exist. Faced
with the insistence, they accepted, they must certainly have wondered what I
was going to do there, but since they are unrivalled in kindness, they took us to
the middle of the bay.
*Noriaki Okabe and Peter Rice worked
on the Kansai project. Nori is a Japanese
architect who collaborated with my
grandfather for twenty years. Peter,
an Irish engineer and co-founder of
Atelier Piano & Rice, passed away in 1992.
38

I listen to him lulled by the waves when the fishermen, who are pulling up their
nets from their boat, greet us with a bow. Captain Patulli sounds the siren from
the bridge. I wave my cap to reciprocate and they tell me something in Japanese
that I don’t understand. But in any case, I cry out: «Thank you! Good work to you
». The grandfather carries on with his story.
We were at anchor, taking notes and I was doing my usual sketches. The
silence was broken only by our companions who suffered from seasickness,
that day there were a lot of waves. We were looking for suggestions, because
any place can give them. Even the most absurd. There is always a small genius
of the place, what the Romans called genius loci, which is worth listening to,
he provides some valuable information for sure. As in fact it happened that
day: the sea is the other side of the Earth, the one we know least. It takes the
slowness of the sea and a bit of silence to understand the reasons. And it is
precisely in this slowness that the challenge arises. Challenging the unknown,
peering into the dark.
This is not the first time he talks to me about the courage to peer into the dark,
because in the end you always manage to see something. And it’s true: entering
a dark room, at first you don’t distinguish anything, but after a while, if you don’t
run away scared, the eye adapts. The pupil dilates and then you begin to perceive
something: an outline, a shadow, a trace. I ask him what he and his friends saw
that time, since there was nothing unless than water.
On that boat we tried to think in terms of water and air, instead of land »he
replies« air and wind, elongated, light shapes, designed to withstand the
earthquakes in that area. Water, sea, tides. Liquid forms in motion, energy,
waves.You know, Elsa, the architect is a land animal. Its materials lean, do not
fly; he himself belongs to the world of heaviness, of materiality. In this sense,
I feel I am different, perhaps even for my youthful love affairs: the port I visited
with my father, the ephemeral structures, the suspended loads of the cranes,
the reflections of the water. I believe that in the form of the airport, flexible and
light, we find the thoughts of that afternoon. It wasn’t wasted time.
39

The airport extends onto the artificial island like a huge glider, huge because it is
1,700 meters long. Like 16 football fields lined up one after the other. The shape
of the glider can be recognized very well from above. The streets draw the two
tail ailerons. The main body is the fuselage. The boarding terminals are wings
spread out to embrace the island. The most important thing was that the building
resisted earthquakes, because in Japan they are violent and very frequent. There
are a thousand of them every year. We float on the waters of one of the most
fragile countries in the world. Its islands are scattered with nearly 150 volcanoes,
most of them active. We are navigating on two platforms of the earth’s crust
that overlap. One tectonic plate pulls to the north, while the other pushes in the
opposite direction, in the middle there is a pit full of magma. Thus, when the
earthquake is unleashed underwater, the coasts are hit by the gigantic waves of
tsunamis. I read that in ancient times the Japanese thought that these cataclysms
were caused by the huge Namazu catfish. He lives under the archipelago and
occasionally flaps his tail. Luckily the god Kashima keeps him still, but when he
loosens his guard, Namazu then squirms, shaking land and sea.
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41

In this page some sketches
that Renzo Piano made
for Osaka airport are
represented. The roof is
like a great “wave”, a sign
reminding lightness.
Grandfather experienced earthquakes during the construction of the Kansai
airport: in 38 months, 36 were recorded and all of them exceeded the 5th degree
on the Richter scale. Even that, devastating, which destroyed the city of Kobe
when construction was now finished. This time he got a big fright.
They warned me while I was in my studio in Paris, it was January 17, 1995,
I remember it was very cold. There was a tremor above the 7th degree, of
tremendous force: the earth moved 18 centimetres horizontally and 12 vertically.
Kansai airport was exactly as far from the epicentre as Kobe, which was
devastated, yet this apparently thin and light building held up without any
damage. The concept is the same whereby the fury of the elements knocks
down the tree, but does not break the rush, light and flexible.
I remind a story they told me when I was a child. You may already know it, but
I like to remember it. A large oak and a small reed had grown in a field. The oak,
looking down, said to her: “How unlucky you are!” At the first breath of the wind
you bend down to touch the ground. I, on the other hand, am strong and robust
and I don’t move an inch».
42

The reed told her not to worry: “The wind bends me, but it doesn’t break me:
rather, how far will you be able to resist?”
Then wind started, as strong as never before, and bent the reed to the ground.
When the gusts subsided, the barrel returned straight as before; the oak, on the
other hand, had been broken and lay on the ground, its roots in the wind. A bit
like what happened with the airport.
Now do you understand why the theme of the lightness of building is not just
a question of form? Everything stems from the need to survive cataclysms.
Earthquakes have two movements: jolting and undulatory. If the building is
heavy, once it starts to move, it becomes difficult to keep it still. Weight is
important because the telluric force imparted by an earthquake is enormous,
the lighter the building, the less force is needed to stop it. Lightness and
flexibility are essential because they allow the construction not to break,
absorbing the impact.
43

The construction of Kansai was also a construction
adventure. 6,000 workers worked on it, which at certain
times reached 10,000. Grandfather remembers a huge crowd
at dawn, before the start of work. They did gymnastics to
music all together, on the immense expanse of gravel of
the island. They wore yellow helmets, harnesses, water
bottles over the shoulder and mountaineering carabiners.
They seemed barefoot, instead they wore Japanese shoes,
those with the big toe divided from the other toes. The
workers preferred them to boots, because they give greater
sensitivity when walking balanced on a beam. They looked
like a samurai army. Grandpa Renzo asks me.
Do you want to know a curious story that says a lot
about the accuracy of the Japanese?
He does not even give me time to reply, as he already tells
me what happened during the construction site opening
ceremony. He asked when the work would be finished and
they told him the exact day three years later. Then, as a joke,
he asked again: “What time?” The Japanese consulted for a
long time and finally replied: “At noon.” And so it was.
44

45

He has always loved construction sites since he was a child, he says they are
wonderful places, where everything moves, where the landscape changes every day.
I always remember my father’s tiny construction site, who was a small
builder.
He says that and it seems that the eyes sparkle with nostalgia.
I see myself as a child observing everything, sitting on a pile of sand. I’ve
always loved going to the construction site with my father, and seeing
things come out of nothing. For a child, the construction site is magic: today
you see scattered sand and bricks, tomorrow you will see a wall that stands
alone, and in the end, everything will become a tall, solid building, where
people can live. It will be turned into something that will defy gravity.
And he carries on remembering distant times, while we have already docked on
the artificial island of the airport.
I often think of my father, it was immediately after the war, in 1945. He
already seemed old to me, even though he was only fifty years old. He was
a Genoese, reserved and taciturn. Perhaps more of a master builder than
an entrepreneur. But, on the construction site, he always had a jacket and
hat on his head, sometimes even a tie. Elegance aside, otherwise he was
always there, working with the others. I was a rather frail child, and my
mom, your great-grandmother Rosa, wanted to take me to the countryside
in Ovada in the summer. It was her idea, along with that of making me
study and making me read anything. She was the stubborn champion of an
undisciplined son and an ass at school.
I would like to interrupt him to ask him what exactly he was up to at school. What the
professors told him and how many shortcomings he had in his report card. But he
runs after her thoughts.
However, I preferred the city to the countryside, and went to my father’s
yard to play. He, after dinner, received the workers at home. There was a
small one, stocky and full of muscles, it was called il Moro. Then there was
Carletto della Rocca Grimalda, always on the move. And there was Luigi,
the faithful guardian.All together they took stock of the day passed and
what there was to do next day. Then my father dictated to me the report
of the day that I wrote slowly on the marble table in the kitchen: 8 workers
worked for a total of 72 hours, received 4 sand graves of the Po, bought 12
dozen nails of 100. I think it also comes from there, from those evenings, my
passion for building.
I watch everything with my mouth open on this magical island. The airport space
is huge and full of passengers running around, happy to leave and return. 18
46

47

KANAK WORLD
The cultural center of Nouméa
We are following the same route of Captain James Cook. He discovered these
lands on the other side of the world, at least as we living in Europe understand
the world. New Caledonia is the antipodes, when in Italy it is day here it is night
and vice versa. Why are we here? And who was Cook? Before explaining the
reason for our crossing on the Magnaghi from Osaka to Noumea and talking
about the cultural center of the kanaks, I want to talk about the famous British
navigator, who is a myth for all sailors.
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49

The boatswain Giobatta, who has read a lot of books on his explorations, a tour
of the oceans, during the days of navigation, told me about it. There are many
places scattered across the continents that bear his name: Mount Cook, the Cook
Islands, the Cook Strait, Cook’s Bay, the Cook Glacier and Cooktown, on the northeastern
coast of Australia.He discovered these tropical islands in the late 1700s.
His sloop, which is a single-masted sailing ship, was called Resolution and the
spectacle that unfolded before his eyes was not to be very different from today:
many tall, straight masts rising from the beach towards the sky. In the dark, they
could be mistaken for moored sailboats. Instead, column pines (which scientists
call Araucaria columnaris) border the shores of the archipelago that the English
captain baptized New Caledonia, because it reminded him of Scotland.
50

As Giobatta explained to me, those masts caught his attention for a very simple
reason: during the interminable journeys, which lasted up to three years, booms,
poles and bowsprits broke, so he embarked their trunks as spare parts. They
seemed made on purpose, with those thin branches that, once cut and worked
with the hatchet, leave no knots on the stem.Cook landed in the company of
naturalists, philosophers, cartographers, astronomers and adventurers. He met
the Melanesian population of the Kanaks, who named him tea, that means chief:
the highest recognition. In return, he left a pair of pigs and a pair of dogs as gifts,
which they had never seen.
51

Going back to the reason for which we came so far away, it should be known that
on this archipelago the grandfather built the cultural centre of the Kanaks, named
after Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the leader who was fighting for the independence of
New Caledonia who was assassinated in the late 1980s.
We had to work at the antipodes with a splendid population, but we knew
little about it until a few months before and we were not asked to make
a tourist village, but to give life to a symbol: to create the cultural centre
dedicated to the Kanak civilization, to represent it in front of foreigners and
pass on the memory to their descendants. In other words, we had to try hard
to think like the Kanaks.
It was not supposed to be a simple undertaking, because their culture is
completely different from ours. There are 300 tribes who speak 29 different
languages ​and their civilization has never been handed down through writing
and books. They tell their story above all through the dance that mimics loves,
cyclones and battles. Each celebration is accompanied by music, played with
shells of shells and bamboo flutes. So the grandfather, to immerse himself and
understand the world of the Kanaks, turned to a French anthropologist, Alban
Bensa, who lived with this population for a long time.
52

Grandfather Renzo argues that architecture is like an iceberg: only the tip
emerges while the rest, which is much larger, remains submerged. The forces that
push it upwards are hidden in the invisible part under water: history, geography,
the environment, music, science, cinema, mathematics, art, ecology and even
anthropology ... Architecture is kept afloat by all these disciplines, he says.
These are all things we have to face every day, which is why the architect’s
life is complicated and adventurous. In architecture it is all a trespass,
it has happened to me many times, and this was the most adventurous.
It happened towards music, art, cinema, science. This is an architect’s
inevitable destiny: to create spaces for all these different people and
businesses. And there is nothing more vital than working on a project
with people from other disciplines, because you share their expectations,
moments of discouragement, the joys of discovery. The architect is an
explorer, just like Cook: he lives on the border and, every now and then,
goes to see what is on the other side.
53

This cultural centre is located on a beautiful peninsula near the capital Noumea,
which overlooks the sea on one side and a lagoon on the other. Here sea birds
of prey fly, parrots chatter and mangrove crabs flap their claws. The wind hisses
through the pines. There is luxuriant vegetation: the large banyan whose roots
the dead were buried, the terraced taro, the fields of yams and the amorella, the
oldest surviving flowering plant to us. The animals then evolved in an incredible
way: the largest pigeon in the world, the largest gecko in the world, the second
largest grasshopper in the world live in New Caledonia. In the forests there is
also a bird that can only be encountered here: it is called kagu and has two small
horns next to the nostrils. Grandfather, however, continues to talk to me about
his building, or rather his buildings.
For the project we did not think of a single building but of a village made
up of ten huts all of different sizes in harmony with nature, the largest is
28 meters high like a 9-storey building. There is a link with the traditional
villages of the Kanaks not only for the layout but also for the shape of the
huts. They are curved structures made of a particular wood, iroko, which
is not eaten by termites. They are shells that only in appearance resemble
huts, inside the environment is equipped with all the opportunities offered
by contemporary technology.

These huts house dance, history, painting, sculpture and music studios. There is a
library and a large outdoor amphitheatre for shows. There is also a school where
children learn the languages ​of art of the Pacific. They are buildings that sing, it
seems that I want to make fun of you but it is not like that. A sound is heard that
is somewhere between hiss and melody. Grandpa and I listen to it in silence.
It is the huts that sing, all the buildings of the Pacific sing. In this area
the trade winds blow constantly for 5 months a year, always in the same
direction, at 20 knots. Precisely this suggested the idea of ​playing with
the wind and its noises, using wood as a construction material.This is why
our cultural centre also sings when the air passes through it. It helped us
to observe what the Kanaks have always done, but also the Maori and the
Aborigines, in building their musical houses, which emit sounds when the
breezes pass through them.

He explains to me that the face of the huts facing the sea and exposed to the wind is
made up of strips that move away from each other as you go up. Thus, they create a
passage for the air, made to break the wind and avoid turbulence.
If we resist the wind, whirlpools are created, as anyone who goes sailing knows.
Part of it must be allowed to flow. And that’s what produces the sound and also
the ventilation.
However, the system they studied also has another purpose: to defend against
hurricanes. During the construction site there were several typhoons. The islands of
the southern hemisphere are battered by raging winds, cyclones and tropical storms.
At least two or three times a year, especially between December and April. Grandfather
Renzo still remembers them.
In 26 months of work we had three hurricanes, with a wind blowing at 250
kilometres per hour, we followed them with our hearts in our mouths. But the
building held up, flexing. The idea of ​designing in the Pacific has always attracted
me for the possibility of confronting myself with a culture based on lightness.
With the idea that the strength lies in flexibility. In Japan it is important for
earthquakes, here for violent hurricanes.
The tale of the oak and the cane comes again to mind, but we have already talked
about it.
Lightness is the key to read these places, it is in this sense that an architect
must become an inhabitant. I have been from time to time Parisian, Berliner, New
Yorker, Londoner and Kanak. While remaining what I am. I think that an architect
who does not recognize himself in the place where he builds cannot grasp its
soul.
Grandfather shows me the flag flying over one of the huts, it is colourful and very
beautiful. How beautiful and colourful are the flowers that women wear in their hair.
The colours are the same as the Kanak flag: the blue of the Pacific that embraces the
archipelago, the red of the bloodshed in the struggle for independence from France of
which New Caledonia was a colony, the green of nature that welcomes the ancestors.
On the left side, there is also a yellow circle that symbolizes the sun and, inside it, a
strange design. It’s a kind of totem pole. It represents the sculpted pinnacles that adorn
the roofs of the huts and are called flèches faîtières. There are beautiful ones, they are
an element of identity for the family, also of pride: a bit like our brass plaques on the
doors. Then they also serve to keep evil spirits away, a bit like our newsstands with
Virgin Mary.
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57

CHALLENGING
THE PACIFIC OCEAN
A worskshop lesson among the waves
We are going to California, we will pass off the coast of Fiji and the Polynesian
Kingdom of Tonga, then we will make a stop in Hawaii, where we will stock up
on food and fuel, and then carry on straight to the port of San Francisco. These
days I have talked a lot with my grandfather, we have a lot of time in the middle
of the Pacific. To reach the destination, the Magnaghi will have to travel over
5,000 miles. According to Commander Patulli, by considering a cruising speed of
12 knots, it will take us about 400 hours. It depends on the currents and winds.
Grandfather Renzo raises the collar of his caban, the typical coat of sea wolves,
right above the white beard. A blue zuccotto on the head protects what remains
outside. It looks like he came out of the pages of Captains Courageous.

He told me the story of the Japanese Ise Grand Shrine, which is believed to be the
holiest place of Shinto worship and which he visited several years ago. After that
visit, he got the idea of ​creating a foundation to teach architecture to children
in his own way. Ise is a collection of over one hundred small temples, which are
demolished and completely rebuilt every twenty years. This tradition began in the
distant 7th century and continues today: the temples were rebuilt for the last time
in 2013 and the next will be in 2033. It works more or less like this: young people
go to Ise when they are twenty years old to learn how to build the sanctuary, then
at forty they build it, and finally at sixty they teach young people from the new
cycle to do it, who have come to replace them. It’s said by my grandfather.
Although the idea of ​redoing a temple that is the same every twenty years
might seem weird, and in fact there is a vein of madness, there is also
something deep. Ise is somehow a metaphor for life: first you learn, then
you do, then you teach. Young people will save the Earth. Young people are
the messages we send to a world we will never see. It is not you who climb
onto our shoulders, it is we who climb onto yours, to glimpse the things we
will not be able to live.
He also says that in the future he intends to dedicate even more time and effort
to young people.
Maybe it’s because I’ve never taught, but when I think about school, I get a
kind of guilt. I am convinced that to pass on the experience to others there
is only the workshop, just as happens in Ise. The workshop is a Renaissance
idea but it’s still very current, in which knowledge is transferred through the
example and practice of the discipline. In fact, there is an age when young
people no longer need to study books to learn, but must be able to take,
absorb, even steal. I always recommend it to the young people who come
to my workshop: I invite them to take and take away, but on condition that
they return with interest.
Every year students come from the United States, Spain, Uganda, Brazil, Mexico,
the United States ... They come to Punta Nave. The name comes from the Scoglio
Nave, a handful of stones rolled into the sea of ​Vesima, in the west of Genoa.
Here there is the foundation that collects the projects already made by the
grandfather and the studio where he works. The first is an ancient pink villa
overlooking the gulf that the grandfather calls the cave of Alì Babà, because
there are the wooden models, the pieces of its buildings, summarising
they are his treasures. While the studio is suspended between earth,
water and sky. I have already said that it resembles a transparent
greenhouse, clinging to the mountain that the farmers have torn,
with great effort, from the greed of nature.
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61

In this page some sketches that Renzo Piano made for
Osaka airport are represented. The roof is like a great
“wave”, a sign reminding lightness.

64

In the office, students work like any other architect and take part in every phase
of projects and construction sites. They build wooden models in the laboratory,
design, follow the construction sites, experiment with new solutions. Just like
it happened in the Renaissance workshops. The idea is that young people learn
by doing. Then it comes the moment when they leave, go home and other guys
arrive to replace them.
Sometimes we see them more often, we follow them from afar, we get news
of them. They continue the journey on their own feet, as it is right. The
workshop has this objective: to teach them a trade and to convey the desire
to go and do it, possibly well, where the future will take them.
The foundation also organizes visits and modelling workshops for elementary,
middle and high school students, with the aim of making the architect’s
profession known. Me and my grandfather also talked about this long journey
that takes us around the seas. What it means to travel, why traveling is beautiful.
Travel is discovery, travel is life. During a journey you look for one thing and
find another one. Traveling is a bit like going to a large library to look for a
book: it is true that you are looking for that book, but looking for that book
you will find many others.
This is explained to me by my grandfather while the sky, of an increasingly faint
grey, is populated by flocks of birds with ashy bodies, some descending in low
flight until they touch the radar. They draw geometries in the air, take advantage
of the updrafts to rise and then swoop down. I had never seen any of this kind
before: they explained to me that they are terns, a bird that orientates itself with
the stars. This season they migrate to California to nest. Nature pushes them to
fly across the ocean. Like the solitary albatrosses, of which my grandfather Renzo
tells me, which land easily but struggle to regain flight.
I am fascinated by the albatross, this large bird that manages to travel
around the world by going down into the water very few times to feed.It has
a superficial, bird’s-eye view, as it’s said. It looks and, when he spots fish,
he dives. And there it goes to the bottom and grabs its prey, but it never
does when the sea is flat, because it could no longer take off. It does this
only when there are waves high enough to use as a springboard, taking
advantage of the air current. It is a bird with a wingspan of over 3 meters
that weighs 11 kilos dry, but soaked in water it can even reach 40. He would
never be able to take off again if he did not use the push of the wave. And
when this arrives, it launches, flaps its wings strongly and gets rid of the
water as quickly as possible.Tell me, Elsa: is there a more intelligent animal?
More capable than the albatross of combining superficiality and depth? This
is also the case in life. In my work I realize how fundamental the bird’s eye
view is, how much need there is for an overview to understand.
65

A SPACESHIP IN PARIS
The Beaubourg Cultural Center
After crossing the Channel, we went up the Seine to go to Paris. It was impossible
to reach it by our research vessel: fishing was too deep with the keel and we
would have run aground on the riverbed. So in the river Port of Rouen, my
grandfather and I moved to a barge that slowly went through the flat waters
of the Seine. But why have we come to the capital of France? Maybe, our long
journey had to start right here, because the career of grandfather Renzo started
from this city. He had already looked for Atlantis in Paris many years ago, when
he and his friend Richard Rogers built a weird spaceship, made of coloured and
transparent tubes, called Beaubourg. The official name of the cultural centre is
Centre Pompidou and now I explain the reason even though grandfather always
prefers using the name Beaubourg.
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In the early seventies of the last century the French president, Georges Pompidou,
launched a competition between architects to design in the Marais district
a cultural centre, a building that had to include a modern and contemporary
art museum, a large library and some rooms for music, cinema, spaces for
exhibitions, information and design. It should have been multifunctional centre.
The grandfather and Richard, who were two young men of 30 years old, attended
the competition without hoping to win it seriously. They were not yet famous,
nobody knew them. However, they got an idea and they wanted to take a shot at it.
When the Beaubourg was conceived, it was very different from nowadays
and few people went to museums. They were sad, boring and even bit dusty
places. They intimidated mothers and frightened the children. We wanted to
oppose that situation.
Then, Renzo and Richard invented a kind of amusement park of culture, cheerful,
all colourful and joyful, to meet the needs of a changing world. They were the
Sixty-eight years, when students and young people revolted to challenge and
change the society. In those years, I was not yet born and so the grandfather, as
we walk through the building on a beautiful sunny day, explains what happened.
We can say that Beaubourg is the son of the 1968. It was time to react to
the idea that museums were intended for few people, they had to be open
to everyone. We wanted to build a light-hearted and unconventional cultural
place, not only to offer culture, but also to produce it.
When my grandfather knew he had won the contest, he didn’t believe it. There is
a funny story that he tells me. They phoned him from Paris to warn him and a lady
said to him “C’etait le laureat” which means he was the winner, but he couldn’t
understand French well, and then at school he was a bit of a dunce, and so he
was barking up the wrong tree. He answered that he had a degree in architecture
and had discussed his thesis at the University of Milan. He had to repeat it three
or four times and at the end, he understood. He would had never thought it
could happen. Instead their project had been chosen among those of the 681
architectural large and important companies from 49 different countries, that had
attended the competition.
On the next page hanging on the wall, some sketches for the
National Centre of Art and Culture Georges Pompidou of Paris by
Renzo Piano are presented.
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Thus, this building was born and it looks like an alien spaceship landed right
in the heart of the city. There is a large square where acrobats and conjuring
musicians show surrounded by the audience. At the moment, a girl makes huge
soap bubbles, using a wired tool made by two sticks joined by a rope. They are
beautiful and as they rise to the sky, they produce the colours of the rainbow.
There are a lot of people cheering her on. The Beaubourg is in front of my eyes:
a giant parallelepiped 42 meters high, long 166 meters and 60 meters wide,
supported by a brightly coloured steel structure and glass walls. 15,000 tons of
steel were used to build it, more than double that used for the Eiffel Tower, and
11,000 square meters of glass. You could think a large glass area like Piazza De
Ferrari which, if you don’t know, is the main square of Genoa. Beaubourg gets
five floors, each of them is as large as two football pitches. At the top, there is a
terrace from which you can see all Paris. You can get on the terrace by taking the
escalator, closed in a transparent tube, which rises diagonally in a zigzag along
the facade. And do you know the reason for all those pipes? It’s not just for an
aesthetic reason, my grandfather has explained it to me.
In order to create free and flexible internal places, we centrifuged
everything outside the building, those parts that normally cannot be
moved: structures, lifts, escalators, systems.
And why the colours? The colours of the external pipes are different according to
their function: blue for air conditioning, yellow for the electrical system, green for
the hydraulic system, red for escalators and elevators.
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During construction, until the opening day in 1977, a lot of controversies arose
because that building was too weird and original to be welcomed. Someone
loved it, but many people were afraid of it and six legal cases tried to stop the
construction site without success. It was said that it looked like an oil refinery,
A silo to park cars or even a monster.
And when they talked to him and Richard, they replied “je comprends pas”,
which means we couldn’t understand. Partially because of it was true that they
couldn’t understand French and partially because they could keep doing what
they wanted. They were two stubborn guys. We are in the museum and there
are beautiful paintings by famous painters such as Picasso, Mirò, Chagall and
Matisse. Those of Chagall remember the illustrations of a fairy-tale book, they fly
with the fantasy. Grandfather tells me that once, when Beaubourg was not yet
finished, in the square was raining heavily and a strong wind was blowing. A lady’s
umbrella turned over and Richard gently helped her put it back. The lady thanked,
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ut when she knew that they were the architects of the building, she closed the
umbrella and began to wield it on their heads. Another story concerns the air
intakes that are installed on the square and that reminiscent of the windsocks of
the boats.
At that time Paris was ruled by a prefect, as the mayor now does. When the
air intakes assembly began, the prefect let us know: “It is too much, you
have overcome every limit “, and prohibited their installation. Then we were
forced to bring them back to the warehouse. After three months we tried
again, and the prefect’s messenger again: “Are you kidding me? My patience
is running out ... “. He swore he would never allow it: “Jamais, moi vivant! “.
Which meant: never while I’m alive. So we retraced our steps again. It had
been going on for a year. The prefect was very old and when he died, the air
intakes were assembled and today they are still there, where you see them.
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Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers
are hit with an umbrella. Who knows
if it happened to others in the past.

Showing me the huge steel beams that make up the main structure of the
building, that is the skeleton, my grandfather spilles a secret to me. Those beams
had to be made in the foundry but when it was known, all the French steel
industry refused, replied that they would be split and that was impossible.
We were aware of our studies and after the refusal of the French, we passed
the order in Germany. This thing should not have been known too much,
because the French were jealous and they would get angry. Have you ever
tried hiding 120-ton steel beams, as heavy as 30 elephants and 50 meters
long?
What kind of questions are they? I’ve never tried, I replied to my grandfather, I am
a girl who still has to take the middle school exam ... Then he smiles and starts to
explain.
Now I explain you how it’s possible to do that: they arrive with a special
train, then they are transported through Paris between 3 and 5 in the
morning, in order to have the minimum of traffic. Of course, it takes a
huge truck, or better two. Before the truck goes across the road, a team
of workers protect all the manholes on the way, which would not bear the
weight, by placing steel plates on it, 4 centimetres thick, which must first be
laid and then picked up with a huge magnet. When the beam arrives at its
destination, it is assembled immediately, otherwise it stops the whole site.
My grandad remembers every detail of those years, spent building the Beaubourg and,
on the other hand, how could he forget such an adventure? He says it was the discovery
of the adventure.
In my opinion, the architect is the most beautiful job in the world. Because
in a small planet, where Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, James
Cook and Roald Amundsen have already discovered everything, planning is
still one of the greatest possible adventures. When I made the Beaubourg,
I really understood it.
We said before that many Parisians criticized Beaubourg while it was under
construction. But over time, more than 40 years have passed since then, they
began to appreciate it. And today they love it, I see it in the eyes of the visitors
who crowd it. Who goes for an exhibition, who read a book in the library, others
go to watch a movie or just have a drink and to enjoy the view at the bar on the
terrace. There are also those who take a tour just to take a look at it. While we
are eating a crepe à la confiture, which would be the jam, on the terrace, my
grandfather explains better.
At the beginning there was a very clear division between those who admired
it and those who hated it, but the latter were much more than the former. On
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the other hand, each new building suffers from an inconvenience: it is new, and
it does not yet belong to the habits of the city. It takes time to get accepted.
When architecture builds the future and understand changes, it is fatally the
target of criticism.
Today 25,000 people visit this cultural centre per day, that is the equivalent
of half the population of Siena or Avellino. It’s time to leave Paris because
our journey must carry on. We must look for the perfect and disappeared city
that grandfather has been chasing for all his life. Atlantis should be gorgeous
according to the Greek philosopher Plato. It is a prosperous land with sources
and orchards in large quantities.Huge mountains sheltered it from the freezing
north winds. On two rings there were temples and gardens, theatres, gyms and
racecourses. It was a rich kingdom with wonderful architecture. And it was also
good, because administered with justice and honesty. Atlantis was punished by
the gods and swallowed by the sea when corruption, a thirst for power and greed

Grandfather Renzo and his granddaughter Elsa leave Genoa, where the Genoa
San Giorgio Bridge has been recently opened. They arrive at the Osaka airport,
on the island that never existed; they climb the Shard, the skyscraper
on the Thames that fades to over 300 meters in height, and finally
they land in Ithaca, the destination of every return.
A deep desire guides them: sailing to look for Atlantis, the perfect city
that represents every architect’s dream. The grandfather is Renzo Piano,
the amazing architect who is well-known internationally. They stop in
the places where the grandfather has been looking to pursue perfection,
building his works throughout the world.
Certainly, the trip will be an adventure as well as the profession
of the architect! Will they discover Atlantis?