Quotes from Renzo Piano

The day I went to see my father to say I wanted to become an architect, he was a bit surprised, because for him being a builder is much more than being just an architect. He was very angry, and I never thought I could do something else.

You can put down a bad book; you can avoid listening to bad music; but you cannot miss the ugly tower block opposite your house.

A builder is like a little god - somebody who does things, doesnt just draw things.

The pursuit of beauty. The word is hard to articulate. As soon as you open your moth, it flies off, like a bird of paradise. Beauty can not be caught, but we are obliged to reach for it. Beauty is not neutral; pursuing it is a political act. Building is a grand act, a gesture toward peace, the opposite of destruction.

You can put down a bad book; you can avoid listening to bad music; but you cannot miss the ugly tower block opposite your house.

The pursuit of beauty. The word is hard to articulate. As soon as you open your mouth, it flies off, like a bird of paradise. Beauty can not be caught, but we are obliged to reach for it. Beauty is not neutral; pursuing it is a political act. Building is a grand act, a gesture toward peace, the opposite of destruction.

In a way I spend my entire life stealing from everything - from the past, from cities I love, from where I grew up - grabbing things, taking not only from architecture but from Italy, art, writing, poetry, music.

The difference between a builder and an architect is that an architect also cares about desire, about dreams.

I think people should try to teach young children that these qualities - stubbornness and a capacity to listen - might look like they are opposites, but they are not.

A museum is a place where one should lose one's head.

Architects have to dream. We have to search for our Atlantises, to be explorers, adventurers, and yet to build responsibly and well.

I don't like the idea that the first preparation when you start to design your building has to put your label. I think this is not fair. It's not fair to the building or to the people, to the client, because every building tells a different story.

In some way, people believe that if you are permeable, if you are a good listener, you don't have the quality of somebody with a firm attitude. This is what, fundamentally, I got from my mother.

When you design a building, you start from a general philosophy, and you come down, and you start from detail and come up. Only the theoretical architect believes that you can make the concept and then sometime, somebody will come to build it.

As an architect, you have to provide a shelter to enjoy art. And you have to love art. It's like when you make a concert hall. You must love music. This is the reason why you make the space, to enjoy music - making a space for art is the same thing.

You have to accept as an architect to be exposed to criticism. Architecture should not rely on full harmony.

When you walk 25-30 feet above ground, it is a miracle, because you are still in the city ... but you are flying above the city. You are in the middle of trees, and that is a moment of beauty.

Enjoying art is a personal matter. It's made up by contemplation, silence, abstraction.

Architecture is a very dangerous job. If a writer makes a bad book, eh, people don't read it. But if you make bad architecture, you impose ugliness on a place for a hundred years.

In architecture you should live for 150 years, because you have to learn in the first 75 years.

There is something about giving everything to your profession. In Italian, an obsession is not necessarily negative. It's the art of putting all your energy into one thing; it's the art of transforming even what you eat for lunch into architecture.

I don't remember a single thing in my childhood that was not related in some way to building.

When a man is not satisfied with a house where he lives, he becomes an architect

Every year I spend one month just sailing, but I still work when Im on the boat. You never separate work from leisure. A boat is like a magic world, like a little island.