Renzo Piano (Genoa, 1937) studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Milan. Since winning the competition to design the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1971) along with Richard Rogers, Piano has become a prominent figure on the international architectural scene, with more works constructed outside Italy than in his own country. Piano brings a similar approach to both the small and the large scale. He has directed projects of very varying sizes: small buildings like the travelling IBN Pavilion and the Brancusi Museum; and great megastructures like Kansai's International Airport Terminal built on a man-made island in the Bay of Tokyo, and the remodeling of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz where work is scheduled to be completed in 2002.
Senator Renzo Piano is an Italian Pritzker Prize-winning architect. Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff said of Piano's works that the "...serenity of his best buildings can almost make you believe that we live in a civilized world."[1] In 2006, Piano was selected by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[2] He was selected as the 10th most influential person in the "Arts and Entertainment" category of the 2006 Time 100. In August 2013 he was appointed Senator for Life in the Italian Senate.