The Gagosian Gallery was an architectural web last week at the opening of “Fragments.” In collaboration with Fondazione Renzo Piano, “Fragments” highlights over 30 years of architectural projects by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
The show offers viewers a look into the mind of an architect, set up like a grid of 24 tabletop displays of scale models, drawings, pictures, and videos. Each table reveals the life cycle of a single building, from museums and airports, to private residences. Among these projects are Kansai International Airport, Osaka; Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center, Nouéa, New Caledonia; and the New York Times Building, New York.
Set-up to educate and expand the knowledge of architecture, “The exhibition will be somewhere between a reading room in a library, a classroom in a school, and a gallery in a natural history museum,” said Piano.
Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy in 1937. He founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in 1981. Today, a team of approximately 150 people work with the Italian architect at his Paris, Genoa, and New York offices. The firm has become renowned for some of the most innovative architectural projects of the past three decades.
The Fondazione Renzo Piano, a non-profit organization, was established in Genoa in 2004. It has two main areas of focus: the conservation of materials related to Piano’s work, and education in the form of the sponsoring of an apprenticeship program for select students at Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Five gallery talks will be given by architects from the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in June and July. Priority will be given to architecture and design students on a first-come, first-served basis;space is limited and RSVP is required.
