Italian Wins Architecture Prize
.c The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Italian architect Renzo Piano, whose ability to meld art, architecture and engineering has been compared to that of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, won this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize.
The prestigious award, which includes a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion, honors a living architect whose work demonstrates a combination of talent, vision and commitment. Announced Sunday by the Hyatt Foundation, it will be presented June 17 at a White House ceremony.
Piano, 60, possesses ``intellectual curiosity and problem-solving techniques as broad and far-ranging as those earlier masters of his native land,'' the prize jury said. ``While his work embraces the most current technology of the era, his roots are clearly in the classic Italian philosophy and tradition.''
Piano of Genoa, Italy, first achieved international fame with the completion of the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris in 1978. When it opened, it was ridiculed and criticized for its whimsical, factorylike appearance with green, blue, white and red pipes running up and down the facades; today, it's the nation's most popular museum.
He went on to create a diverse array of structures that include the Beyeler Foundation Museum in Basel, Switzerland; the Cy Twombly Gallery at the Menil Collection museum in Houston and the Kansai Air Terminal in Osaka Bay, Japan.
His current projects include the renovation and expansion of parts of Harvard University and the Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church in Foggia, Italy. Besides museums and art complexes, Piano has also designed homes, shopping centers, bridges and cars.
Piano said he achieves his works by forcing himself to try things that never have been done.
``If you intend to use a material, a construction technique, or an architectural element in an unusual way, there is always a time when you hear yourself saying, 'It can't be done,' simply because no one has ever tried before,'' Piano has said. ``But if you have actually tried, then you can keep going - and so you gain a degree of independence in design that you would not have otherwise.''
The Pritzker prize was established by the Hyatt Foundation in 1979. Piano is the second Italian to receive the award. The late Aldo Rossi was selected in 1990.
AP-NY-04-19-98 2200EDT