Renzo Piano: Architecture is art that you do to shelter something else

I believe architecture is art, of course. It’s art, but it’s not sculpture because it’s made for making service to something else. Architecture is art that you do to shelter something else - a house, a family, a museum, a concert hall. [...] Take the Menil Foundation for example. It is not a space that you can say is neutral. The famous theory about making neutral space for museums because then the architecture does not compete with the art is a stupid idea. If you make a neutral space you kill art. You cannot give up as an architect. You still have to give to your work and your space a character.

[...] But when you have to hang up a painting, you have to hang it up on planes not curves. You may ask what I think of the Frank Lloyd Wright Guggenheim in New York, which is a great building, better for sculpture than for painting. It’s so good that in the end, you excuse it.

Also: Tesugen on Renzo Piano's workshop, modelled on the Renaissance bottega.