The inauguration ceremony of the 2021-2022 academic year will take place on Friday, the 15th of October, at 11 am in the internal quadrilateral of the Albergo dell’Agenzia.
A report by the Rector prof Bartolomeo Biolatti will open the morning, followed by an intervention by the President of the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Carlo Petrini.
Guest of honour is the architect and senator for life Renzo Piano, who will hold the Lectio Magistralis entitled “Come vengono le idee”.
The invite-only ceremony complies with the current provisions in force to contain the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. It provides access only to the invited students, members of the teaching body and guests.
Renzo Piano
Born in Genoa in 1937, he graduated from the Politecnico di Milano in 1964 and worked in the studio of Franco Albini during his university days. In 1970, in London, he founded the Piano & Rogers studio with Richard Rogers, winning the competition to construct the Center Pompidou in Paris in 1971.
From 1977 to 1981, he collaborated with the engineer Peter Rice, creating the Atelier Piano & Rice. In 1981, he set up the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, now an office of 120 people based in Paris and Genoa.
Among his main achievements, apart from the Center Pompidou, are the Menil Collection in Houston, the Terminal of the Kansai International Airport in Osaka, the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center in New Caledonia, Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, l’Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, The Shard in London, the extension of the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard Art Museums in Boston, the extension of the Morgan Library, the headquarters of the New York Times, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the new campus for Columbia University in New York, the Cultural Center of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in Athens, the Botín Center in Santander (Spain), the new Court of Paris and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
In 1998, he received the “Pritzker Architecture Prize”, considered the Nobel Prize for architecture. His other awards include the RIBA “Royal Gold Medal” in 1989, the “Praemium Imperiale” in Tokyo in 1995, and the AIA Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects in 2008.
On the 4th of September 2013, the architect Piano was appointed Senator for Life by the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano. In May 2014, he received the Laurea Honoris Causa from Columbia University in New York.