描述
1987, Houston, Texas.
The project that marked the “return to architecture” after the Centre Pompidou. The extraordinary encounter with the client, Dominique de Menil, who wanted a building “big inside and small outside” in which to exhibit over 10,000 pieces of primitive and modern art. The rotation of the works and the “Treasure House”. The theme of natural light and the idea of the village museum. Experimentation as a fundamental tool of the creative process. A unifying thread, that of experimentation and natural light, that would accompany RPBW’s work in many future projects.
The Menil Collection, the first volume of the collection devoted to museums, was published in 2007.
Like all the monographs edited and published by the Renzo Piano Foundation, the volume was produced by drawing on unpublished material in the archives: sketches, models, construction documents, and first-hand testimonies by the leading figures involved in the project.
This is how the story of a fundamental building in Renzo Piano’s story is told.
From the collaboration with collector Dominique De Menil, who asked for a museum that would be “small outside and big inside,” to the first experiments with the theme of zenithal lighting, the project is reconstructed chronologically at every stage, from idea to inauguration, through a long story told in images. The principal text, which runs without a break at the end of the book, is Renzo Piano’s own account, recorded and transcribed faithfully for this book. The reader is thus guided by his voice to discover this unique museum.
