Renzo Piano - Architect HARDtalk


Renzo Piano - Architect

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Now on BBC News, it is HARDtalk.

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My guest today, Renzo Piano,

is the architect of that building.

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The London Shard.

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He is one of the world's most

accomplished architects.

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He is used to dividing opinion.

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He designed Paris's poverty centre.

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He has taken on high-profile

developments all over the world.

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His latest creation is already

loved, but it is also loathed.

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One critic described it

as a monument to wealth and power,

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run way out of control.

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What does it say about us

and why build so big?

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Renzo Piano, welcome to HARDtalk.

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This building is tall.

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It is now the tallest

in the European Union.

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Why?

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What is the statement

by building it so tall?

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I don't really remember.

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The reason why it is

the tallest, I don't remember.

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I don't really care.

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It was actually taller

in the beginning.

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But then they said that

you cannot because

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it would interfere

with the flight paths.

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We stopped.

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The building is now 310 metres.

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We still decided to go up to 400.

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It was almost not finished.

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People believe it is not finished.

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Simply desiring to go higher,

but not going higher.

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This idea that a building

does not finish.

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It stands like that.

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The last piece of

glass goes like that.

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If you need them to

go, they can go up.

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This is part of the game.

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We did not try to make

the tallest building in Europe.

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It just happened by chance?

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It happened by chance.

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Also because if you want to put

all of those functions,

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because this building has

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at least six or seven

different functions.

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It is like a little vertical city.

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It is like a village.

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-- You have transportation,

public transportation -

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you come up and you have

trains and buses.

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You have shops.

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You have offices.

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You have a public space.

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You have a hotel.

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And then we have the

viewing platform.

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It is a long time since you first

drew the plans for it.

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When you are designing something

and thinking about what it must look

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like, you are now in a situation

for the past few months

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where it is approaching

completeness, how do

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you feel about it?

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As an architect, if you make

something wrong it is wrong forever.

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If you are a musician,

you make music.

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You understand that

something is wrong.

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What you do is the real thing.

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Then you do it again.

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When you make a sculpture,

what is in front of you

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is the sculpture.

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If you are making architecture,

you do not judge the real thing.

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You judge the drawing

of the real thing.

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The model.

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The rendering.

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You have to use your imagination.

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You need to figure out

what it will be in reality.

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That would suggest that

if there is something wrong with it,

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you cannot fix it.

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Exactly.

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That's the tragedy.

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That's the reason why,

as an architect, it is

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a very dangerous job.

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Dangerous for you, but even more

dangerous for other people.

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If you do something

wrong, it is forever.

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What did you think when you saw it?

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I think it is fine.

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I stopped crossing my

fingers a few months ago.

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You do everything you

can to make it right.

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But the truth is that you understand

if it is right or wrong only then.

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When it's built.

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I'll tell you if I

think it is right.

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But I did not know exactly.

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I wasn't sure.

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To listen to you, you seem to think

it might not perhaps be good enough?

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What is wrong with it?

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In school, I grew up

with the idea that other people

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are always better than you.

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I grew up with the idea that

what you do is maybe fine.

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Surprisingly fine.

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But probably not good enough.

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So you grow up thinking that other

people are better than you.

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Even now, 75, I still feel that

every time I do something right,

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it is a miracle.

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It is something surprising.

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I do not live in the sensation that

everything I do is right.

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It is always a great surprise.

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It would be quite

hard to live in that.

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Not least because of some

of the comments made.

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Particularly one of the criticisms

that it is out of proportion.

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Here you are outside

the Tower Bridge and St Paul's.

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And you have this

massive glass shard.

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The chairman of the National Trust

said that this tower is anarchy.

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It conforms to no planning policy.

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It seems to have lost its way

from Dubai to Canary Wharf.

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I know that criticism.

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I think it is wrong.

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One of the most important

things for an architect

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because we are making

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a dangerous job is

to listen to people.

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It is one of the most

important things of the work.

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It is easiest to learn.

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It does not mean you listen

and then you are obedient.

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You listen to understand.

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One thing you do when you do this

kind of building is to listen

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to people and accept criticism.

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For this job, we went

through a public inquiry.

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It lasted almost two years.

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A public inquiry is not something

unusual in this country.

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You do it for big and

complicated things.

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They decided to do this.

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The arguments were brought out.

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The argument was whether

it was right or wrong.

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Another criticism levelled

against it is that in a sense

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it is a metaphor

for wealth and power.

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An art critic says it is a monument

to wealth and power runaway

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out of control.

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A flashing warning sign of disease.

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Yeah, you know, I think

of different things.

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On this one, I think there is a lot

of distortion on this one.

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When you go through this building

and you realise that what is open

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to the viewing platform will be

visited by 5,000 people per day.

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The office will be used by something

like 5,000 people per day.

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They are not rich people.

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You have to pay £25.

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£25 is too much.

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In this town, everything costs £25.

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I told them it was too much.

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I tried.

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What did they say?

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Everybody says that in this town,

everything costs at least £25.

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But it doesn't.

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I told my colleague,

I was with my wife to go around

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to all of those little

shows on the bottom.

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They all cost £25-30.

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The London Eye costs £28-30.

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It is too expensive.

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It is too expensive.

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It is too expensive.

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It is too expensive.

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I agree because one of the aims

of this building is to give it

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to the people.

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And to be public.

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And for some, costing

£25 is too much.

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That is for sure.

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But argument is that anyawy,

that this is the normal price.

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If you go to New York,

if you go to the top

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of the Empire State Building,

you spend more than that.

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One of the things discussed is that

whether it is a metaphor

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to wealth and power,

rather than to the people.

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I think it is wrong.

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We got something

a bit too moralistic.

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If you look more carefully,

you will find that this building

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will be used every day by ten

thousand people at least.

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How much of the building

has been let out?

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I think it is only the restaurant...

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The hotel?

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The hotel.

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This part, the others,

they are still discussing.

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But they are not let

because they do not find a tenant.

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They are not let because they

have their own policy.

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The policy of those people

being that they wait for the right

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moment to rent and all that.

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They want it to be empty?

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Is that what you're saying?

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Yes.

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Up until the building

being finished.

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The building will be finished

in about six months.

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The hotel will open in June.

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The official public opening of this

building was last summer.

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We have not heard anything

about the occupants.

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It is like a city.

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You do not open a building

in a single day.

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You bring energy across the river.

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And then, then you make

public transportation.

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Then you make a vertical city.

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It is not one of those buildings

that closes in the evening.

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And you know, I think that

all of this discussion

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about the fact that this building

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is a kind of monument to money

is just a distortion.

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Because...

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It will not be proven

by events, you say?

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Yes, for sure.

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I am very pragmatic.

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And I am very keen about that,

because at my age, I grew up knowing

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that by making architecture,

you have to be a good builder.

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Your father was a builder.

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You have to be a poet,

but you have to be militant.

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You have to be a social worker.

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You have to have this kind

of ethical dimension.

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The argument is very simple.

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This building will be lived daily

by 10,000 people per day.

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Some will be rich.

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But no more than 50 or 60 people.

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You have made so many

different types of buildings

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all around the world.

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You look at your work,

whether it's art galleries,

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museums in the United States,

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churches in Europe, an airport

terminal in Japan...

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You look at them and

they are all unique.

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There is no singular or something

that would stand out

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as a Renzo Piano style

of architecture.

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And I wonder if when you look at all

of those, what is most rewarding?

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Is it that you see,

from what you said before it is not

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the tallest building,

not the most striking...

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Yeah, I think that what is rewarding

to me is to be part of the human

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adventure of architecture.

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You know, the reason

why - why - why I...

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I am very diffident towards style,

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not just for architecture,

but for everybody, is a kind

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of golden cage.

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You get trapped in the style.

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And then you have to repeat it.

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What is great about architecture

or a job like journalism

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or movie-making is the adventure.

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The sense of adventure.

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The architect is like a kind

of like a Robinson Crusoe.

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Robinson Crusoe landed

in a new island every time and made

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a new adventure.

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That is exactly what happens.

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If you are trapped in your own

style, you have to repeat it.

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Is it changing people's lives?

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If you ask me about language

and style, there is a lot of this

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language of coherence coming from...

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Much of that comes

from my childhood.

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I was born in Genoa,

in a city of sea and water,

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where everything flies.

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It is a fantastic city.

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Stone and water.

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Stone in the historical centre,

water in the harbour.

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Everything floats, everything flies,

from the ships to the cranes,

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they do not touch ground,

the ships are buoyed.

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If you look at my age

for what I can call,

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not style, but coherence,

language, and...

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And yet here we are in a building

that is very much of a certain

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fashion, the glass.

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Prince Charles has said,

I'm afraid that the building tends

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very quickly to become

unfashionable, tired,

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outdated, no longer contemporary.

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It is ripe for demolition

and replacement.

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He also refers to energy

guzzling glass boxes.

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I remember the world of the judge.

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They made the judgement

of the public inquiry.

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The judge after 18 months

of discussion, he said,

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even St Paul's at

the time was modern.

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And it was controversial.

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If it is good, it is good.

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Every classic has been at a certain

moment modern and contemporary.

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Will this become a classic

like St Paul's Cathedral?

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No idea.

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I'd be arrogant to say so.

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I am saying for me the problem

is not to be classical or to be

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modern, it is to be

good or to be bad.

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If you are good,

there is nothing wrong.

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European cities have layers

of different moments,

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celebrating and

representing their time.

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The problem is whether

you are good or not.

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I do not trust Prince

Charles's judgement.

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I think this building will be

great for centuries.

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It's not arrogant.

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It is actually very light,

it is like a crystal presence,

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it is not killing anything.

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It is very gentle.

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So you do not trust his judgement

on this building, do

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you trust his judgement

on other architecture?

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He's quite right on many points by

criticising modern architecture...

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We have to be honest.

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It's created disasters in the past.

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But you cannot turn your back...

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I prefer not to talk

too much about that.

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I know that in everybody's

judgement, there is always something

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good to take, but for me,

but there is one thing important,

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you have to be yourself.

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If you live in a time

that is the 21st century,

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you have to belong to it.

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What is quite interesting

is that you are talking

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about vertical cities.

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In a way, that was a fashion

at a certain time, streets

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in the sky.

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Now there is a move away

from high-rises because people

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do not want to live

on top of each other.

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You can create denser,

more efficient, better living space

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with old-fashioned terraces.

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This is wrong.

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I am sorry.

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It is totally wrong.

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Today, the 21st century,

the most important discovery

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is the fragility of earth.

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The most unsustainable thing that

you can think of are the periphery,

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the sprawl of little

cottages and houses.

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Forget it.

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It is impossible.

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It is not sustainable in any sense.

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It's just a romantic idea.

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So in energy terms, a glass building

like this is better?

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It spends 10 times less.

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It is better than little villas.

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This building, with the system

we use for keeping the things out

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is incredibly efficient...

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Even if you are tackling

the problems of the banlieue,

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Paris suburbs, you would suggest

that you put these high-rises,

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you would create cities

on the peripheries?

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I am not saying so.

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The solution of the cities is not

to make a new periphery.

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It is not solved by making new

periphery and creating new tragedy.

0:19:280:19:34

The solution is not

expansion by explosion.

0:19:340:19:38

The solution is

expansion by implosion.

0:19:380:19:43

The opposite.

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It is the only sustainable road.

0:19:450:19:50

Especially in a city like London.

0:19:500:19:54

It is to grow from inside,

building on what we call brownfield.

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In brownfield, in London,

lots of brownfields.

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Even in Berlin,

I built on brownfield.

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It was the little space left

between the East and West.

0:20:170:20:28

In cities, dense like Barcelona...

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There is always the

possibility to grow.

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It doesn't mean that I preach

the value of putting

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tall buildings everywhere.

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I say that sometimes.

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A building like this one,

it makes sense to go up and show...

0:20:500:20:56

Can I ask you finally about how

you judge the success of a building?

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Because I happened to recognise

you outside out on the street.

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You were spying on people,

listening to hear what they were

0:21:090:21:13

saying about it?

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Is that how you judge the success?

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Not because I am a perverse person,

but I learnt that a long time ago

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after I did the Pompidou Centre

in Paris, Roberto Rossellini,

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he was making a movie.

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He was watching me.

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He said, you should not

look at the building,

0:21:450:21:49

you should see the face of people

looking at the building.

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You have to look at the mirror of

the building on the face of people.

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Since then, I did the same thing.

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I do it in the most

natural way I can.

0:22:110:22:16

I listen and I watch people.

0:22:160:22:19

What do you see?

0:22:190:22:22

Surprise, wonder.

0:22:220:22:25

Not fear.

0:22:250:22:30

Many say, oh, this is

the way, we are here.

0:22:300:22:36

They use the building

as a new reference in this city.

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They find their way by it.

0:22:390:22:44

Sometimes they argue over

whether it is finished.

0:22:440:22:56

The problem is very simple.

0:22:560:22:58

I do not like to surprise people.

0:22:590:23:01

I don't like to be controversial.

0:23:010:23:05

But if you are an architect,

and you don't waste your time

0:23:050:23:13

with stupid things, you find

yourself celebrating shifts

0:23:130:23:15

in the society.

0:23:150:23:17

In some way, that is what happened.

0:23:170:23:25

A long time ago, and we were young

bad boys, we got to celebrate a big

0:23:250:23:29

shift in society.

0:23:290:23:33

With the Pompidou Centre.

0:23:330:23:35

It changed the way that

people thought of you.

0:23:350:23:37

Caused a big fuss.

0:23:370:23:38

Someone had to do the dirty job.

0:23:380:23:40

We need a place creating

curiosity and welcome.

0:23:400:23:46

In between, I had done many other

things like that, in Chicago.

0:23:460:23:52

Here, it is the same thing.

0:23:530:24:01

As an architect, you don't change

the world, but celebrate the change.

0:24:010:24:05

Renzo Piano, thank you for

coming on HARDtalk.

0:24:050:24:11

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