This volume examines Renzo Piano’s formative years, i.e., those preceding his breakthrough with the Centre Georges Pompidou. The surprising success achieved by an architect in his early thirties in the famous international competition in 1971 overshadowed his previous experiences for a long time, which are fundamental to understanding not only the genesis of the Beaubourg (conceived together with Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini), but also his entire body of work.
The dense web of his complex cultural roots is finally untangled by Lorenzo Ciccarelli, who was the first to gain access to the archives of the Renzo Piano Foundation.