Quotes from Renzo Piano

Architecture is art, but art vastly contaminated by many other things. Contaminated in the best sense of the word – fed, fertilised by many things.

When I was a student in the '60s, I dreamt of making a house 7 feet by 7 feet, as a dream of freedom, of self-moderation.

As an architect, you cannot be so arrogant as to say you are 100% sure about what you do.

A piazza is not a plaza. The plaza is the theme park of the piazza; the plaza is the commercial version. A piazza is an empty space with no function. This is what Europeans understand.

Architecture is an imposed art in some ways, imposed upon the public, so people must be sure about what you're doing. You have to be sure about what you're doing.

London is one of the most civilised places in the world for the procedure of making architecture and urban design.

I don't want to be romantic, but one of the most important things is to have happy buildings... it's like having a family with a lot of children.

I came to architecture from building. Because my father was a builder, everybody was - and is - a builder in my family.

If you have total freedom, then you are in trouble. It's much better when you have some obligation, some discipline, some rules. When you have no rules, then you start to build your own rules.

Knowing how to do things not just with the head, but with the hands as well: this might seem a programmatic and ideological goal. It is not. It is a way of safeguarding creative freedom.