Renzo Piano pursues architecture as a profoundly humanistic and optimistic undertaking. He understands architecture as both art and science, and the work of the architect as the constant effort to hold in balance a series of inherent dualisms: discipline and freedom, memory and invention, nature and technology. Renzo Piano and the Building Workshop create meaning through the act of making, experimenting continuously with light and materials and structure, guided by a deep awareness that everything crafted by humans is nonetheless embedded in the world of nature. Embracing the full spectrum of human activity, the work of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop ranges from sublime settings for art and music, to buildings that express and support the nobility of scientific inquiry, to places that celebrate and project into the future the historical continuity of societies and cultures.