This 1992 exhibition of the work of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop focused on twelve works that showed the range of the Building Workshop’s architecture, in terms of program and location, and the design solutions and materials explored and adopted. The show was presented in an unconventional format in order to reflect the method and ethos of the Building Workshop and the very tactile qualities of its works. It was a hands-on show inviting active engagement with some of the material, and was as much about process of design and construction as about its eventual products, the completed buildings. A tabletop, evocative of both drafting table and workbench, was devoted to each work. At each table the local factors, design concepts, original construction documents, assembly processes, and some of the published critical reception were available for study. Imagery, models, and sometimes an actual component or characteristic piece gave some sense of the building’s physical presence. On some tables, computers allowed study of simplified versions of design investigations by the Building Workshop and Ove Arup & Partners.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop: Selected Projects was accompanied by an exhibition catalogue with extensive text by curator Peter Buchanan that discussed the twelve projects included in the show and explored the history and working method of the Building Workshop at a pivotal time in its growth. This text is reproduced on the following pages.