RPBW: Fragments

Mark your calendars for what promises to be a must-see show at the Gagosian Gallery on West 21st Street in New York City. The opening reception for Renzo Piano Building Workshop: Fragments is Thursday, June 27, from 6-8pm.



A snippet from the Gagosian Gallery press release:

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.
—Renzo Piano

In collaboration with Fondazione Renzo Piano, Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “Fragments,” an exhibition of more than thirty years of architectural projects by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

Equal parts library reading room, school classroom, and natural history gallery, the exhibition consists of twenty-four tabletop displays of scale models, drawings, photographs, and video. Each tells the involved, inspiring story of the design process of a single building, from museums, libraries, and airports to private residences. Among these projects are Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Menil Collection, Houston; Kansai International Airport, Osaka; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center, Nouméa, New Caledonia; The New York Times Building, New York; Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Athens; and the Whitney Museum’s new building in downtown Manhattan.

The tabletop displays of completed and in-progress projects recall earlier RPBW exhibitions, such as Renzo Piano: the architect's studio at the Louisana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark:

[© Brøndum A/S, Photo: Paul Buchard]

The description is also reminiscent of this somewhat well-known photo of the architect's workshop in Italy:

[Photo © Fregoso & Basal]

I can't wait.