One of the world's most renowned architects, Renzo Piano (born 1937) is responsible for such iconic landmarks as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Shard in London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. He works closely with engineers to craft his buildings, which have changed cities across the globe. The Renzo Piano Building Workshop, based in Paris and Genoa, fosters this spirit of collaboration and mentoring, and continues to pioneer groundbreaking architecture that challenges and inspires.

This book, which accompanies an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, provides an intimate look at the life and work of a man who believes passionately that architecture should make a positive contribution to people and place. An exclusive interview with Piano himself, in which he shares his professional experience and personal and architectural wisdom, introduces this exceptional publication, before a series of texts by major figures from the worlds of politics, culture, planning and building, including the Oscar-winning actor and director Roberto Benigni, the internationally renowned sculptor and architect Susumu Shingu and the architect Richard Rogers, Piano's codesigner of the Pompidou Centre in Paris.