Renzo Piano (1937) was born in Genoa. While studying at the Politecnico di Milano, he worked at the architecture firm of Franco Albini. After graduating, he began experimenting with lightweight, mobile and temporary structures, making numerous trips to Great Britain and the United States for the purpose of research and investigation. In 1971 he opened the firm “Piano & Rogers” in collaboration with Richard Rogers. They won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where Piano then made his home. Later he worked with the engineer Peter Rice, creating the “Atelier Piano & Rice”. In 1981 he opened the “Renzo Piano Building Workshop”, with offices in Paris, Genoa and New York. The structural rigor and lightness of form that characterize his projects can also be found in his design work, including his Parete RP partition system for UniFor. He has been awarded numerous prizes over the years, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998. In September 2013, Renzo Piano was appointed Senator for Life by President Giorgio Napolitano.