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PARISH CHURCH IN LECCE
The city of Lecce, located in the southern heel of the Italian peninsula, is associated with highly ornate baroque palaces and churches, their facades overlaid with elaborate decorative carvings in the local limestone. — Published 2009.0902
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CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Renzo Piano demonstrates a mastery of light throughout his work. At the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, he exhibits the same care lighting a museum of the natural world as he has in lighting some of the world's finest art collections. — Published 2008.1112
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GREAT PUBLIC MARKETS
The activity of buying and selling food has shaped our cities and towns for centuries, since an urban population by nature depends on others for agricultural production. At the heart of this activity stands the public market — the buildings and spaces in which vegetables, meat, and other commodities intended for human consumption are sold by diverse persons from numerous spaces or stalls, all under a common authority. — Published 2008.0709
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BROAD CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has traditionally been known for two things: its status as the largest encyclopedic art museum in the western United States, and its schizophrenic campus.
Bolstering the former and addressing the latter, LACMA has unveiled a long-awaited free-standing addition to its collection: the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in conjunction with executive architect Gensler. — Published 2008.0507
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PIANO TONE
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia now bears the signatures of two living masters. Richard Meier designed the original in 1983; the expansion by Renzo Piano opened in November, 2005. The new addition reinforces Piano's reputation as a designer of cultural palaces that are distinctive without being ostentatious — and spare without an overly minimalist chill. — Published 2005.1130
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SOUTHERNNESS IN ARCHITECTURE
If John F. Kennedy did indeed call Washington, D.C., "a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm," it was a statement characterized less by its deadly accuracy and double-edged sharpness than by the startling lack of ambiguity that went with it. The American North is prized for its efficiency and the opulence of its progress. The American South is seen to lack those qualities and to rely instead on more leisurely (and more charming) ways. — Published 2004.0901
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JUVARRA IN TURIN
The Duke of Savoy was in search of an architect to help him transform the city of Turin in the Italian Piedmont. The duke wanted his capital to be a modern, successful city of his Late Baroque period, that would show that the powerful House of Savoy stood at the forefront of world architecture. — Published 2003.1029
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MOSHE SAFDIE PEABODY ESSEX ADDITION
Moshe Safdie's architecture continues to intrigue. Buildings such as the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Exploration Place Science Center and Children's Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the Vancouver Public Library in Canada each exhibit the Israeli-born architect's passion for complex geometries, elegant materials, and urban place-making. The new $125 million addition to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, is no exception. — Published 2003.0820
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LEBANON'S MASTER ARCHITECT
Pierre El Khoury is one of the best known of Lebanese architects. His career of over five decades has produced some 200 diverse projects. While it is not easy to find a single theory to illuminate his body of work, one can understand it and distinguish it from that of his contemporaries simply through observation. — Published 2002.0710
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SAVING VENICE
One of the most visited tourist centers in the world is today threatened by the very element that makes it famous. The canals of Venice can no longer hold back the rise of the tidal waters.
Of major architectural significance in the sinking city and one of the lowest areas of the island is the Piazza San Marco. The plaza now becomes fully immersed during the highest tides of autumn and winter. — Published 2001.0815
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Plazas and Piazzas page: 
