Renzo Piano, left, will visit campus April 19 and 20; the Tjibaou Cultural Center in Noumea, New Caledonia, above, was completed in 1998.       Photos by John Gollings

2001 Wexner Prize awarded to renowned architect Renzo Piano

Internationally heralded architect Renzo Piano will be awarded the ninth Wexner Prize this month. Piano's designs include the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Kansai airport terminal in Osaka, and the forthcoming New York Times headquarters in Manhattan.

This marks the first Wexner Prize ever awarded to an architect, and the first prize Piano has received from a multidisciplinary institution.

Piano will visit the Wexner Center April 19-20 to receive the $50,000 award and to give a public presentation. The Wexner Prize, presented by the Wexner Center and Ohio State, is awarded annually to a major contemporary artist who has been consistently original, influential and challenging to convention.

Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, and studied architecture at the University of Florence and the Milan Polytechnic Architecture School. He then set up Studio Piano, collaborating with such architects as Z.S. Makowsky, Louis I. Kahn and Jean ProuvŽ. He partnered with Richard Rogers to design and build the Pompidou Center in the 1970s and went on to work with engineer Peter Rice until Rice's death in 1992. Today, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, established in 1981, has offices in Genoa and Paris.

Piano's work has been exhibited worldwide, including a major retrospective mounted by the Pompidou Center in Paris and the New National Gallery in Berlin. He has received virtually every major award offered in the field of architecture, among them the Pritzker Prize (1998), the Premium Imperiale in Tokyo (1995), the Premio Michelangelo in Rome (1994), the Arnold Brunner Memorial Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994) and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (1989).

The Wexner Prize is funded by the Wexner Center Foundation through a gift from Abigail and Leslie H. Wexner, chair of the Wexner Center Foundation and chair and founder of The Limited Inc. A commemorative sculpture designed by artist Jim Dine accompanies the award.

Several events will be held in conjunction with the prize.

Renzo Piano: Piece by Piece will be screened at 7 p.m. April 17 in the Film/Video Theater. In 1998, documentarian Christopher Tuckfield made this film, which features images of Piano's architecture, illuminated by interviews. Piano shares personal reflections on the creative process -- insights applicable not just to architecture, but to many other disciplines.

In a free lecture at 7 p.m. April 19 in Mershon Auditorium, Piano will discuss his career, from early projects such as the Pompidou Center through his current commission for the new headquarters building for The New York Times.

On April 20, Piano will join Wexner Center Curator of Architecture Jeffrey Kipnis for a talk with students. Later that day, a private award ceremony will be held in his honor.

At 2 p.m. April 20, in the Wexner Center Bookshop, Piano will sign copies of books relating to his work, including volumes from Renzo Piano Building Workshop: Complete Works (Phaidon) by Peter Buchanan.

In accepting the prize, Piano joins the distinguished company of previous recipients, including John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Martin Scorsese and Robert Rauschenberg.

Distinguished lecturer to discuss the impending perils of population growth

Lecture scheduled for April 26 in Wexner Center

Here's a scary statistic: By 2050, the Earth will support from 7.7 billion to 13 billion people. Enormous technological developments in energy resources, food production and water supplies are essential to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population.

Clive Edwards, professor of entomology, will discuss"The Future of Human Populations: Energy, Food and Water Availability" as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series. Edwards' free, public lecture begins at 4 p.m. on April 26 in the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater. A reception will follow.

Clive Edwards, professor of entomology, will discuss"The Future of Human Populations: Energy, Food and Water Availability" as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series.

Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas aren't limitless, and the availability of oil- and coal-based chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers will peak by 2010 and will either be exhausted or prohibitively expensive by 2050, Edwards said. Also, the per capita production of food has decreased progressively due to land loss, soil erosion, deforestation and urbanization.

"Even if we develop innovative and renewable energy technologies, slow the loss of productive soil, discover biological alternatives to energy-based chemicals and find new sources of fresh water, the world's human population cannot continue to increase at its current rate," Edwards said."And we may already be close to peak population limits."

Edwards is currently recognized as a world authority on earthworms and has published extensively on soil ecology, environmental toxicology and sustainable agriculture. He received an Ohio State Distinguished Scholar Award in 1998 and the OSU International Outstanding Faculty Award in 1996.

The University Distinguished Lectureship recognizes outstanding faculty at Ohio State. It gives them the opportunity to discuss their work with the community and also provides a $5,000 award to support an academic program or project of the lecturer's choice. Edwards will donate his award to graduate student research-related traveling.