Atlantis - by Carlo Piano & Renzo Piano (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Renowned architect Renzo Piano (the New Whitney Museum, the Pompidou Center, Potsdamer Platz, Cite Internationale, New York Times Building, The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, etc.) and his son Carlo, a well-regarded journalist, set sail from Genoa one late Summer day to search for Atlantis, the perfect city, built to harbor a perfect society.

Embarking not only on a life-changing journey but also on series of conversations that are humorous, irreverent, erudite, and always entertaining, Renzo and Carlo travel from Genoa in search of the perfect city, along the way reflecting on their own relationship, on fathers and sons, on the idea of travel itself, and perhaps most notably on architecture, space, and the secret life of forms.

Piano, subject of The Art of Making Buildings and a man who can not only measure land at a glance but also the sea's infinite geometry, returns to the places where he has created his iconic works, mosaic pieces in the infinite, necessary quest for perfection. With his son he sails across the Pacific, along the banks of the Thames and the Seine, reaching as far as Athens, San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and Osaka Bay.

In search of beauty, Piano finds only imperfection. And so, all that remains is to sail on, in the company of his son.

Review Quotes

★ "Italo Calvino's sensibility echoes in the volume's radiant prose [ . . . ] An intimate and insightful chronicle of exploration and revelation."--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"An inspiring meditation on beauty, architecture, and the essence of modern cities."--The Christian Science Monitor

"Atlantis is a breathtaking travelogue, a memoir of father-and-son bonding, and a tribute to the power of myth all in one."--Apple Books, Best Book of November

"An audaciously ambitious, unfailingly beguiling book. It is intimate and deliberately public all at once, vigorously peripatetic and languidly philosophical, a complex offspring of the tradition of ancient travelogues of ignorance and knowledge."--Bookanista

"Complex, tender, moving."--La Repubblica

"Engaging and endlessly original."--Bon Culture

About the Author

Carlo Piano, the son, journalist. Curious explorer of cities and their customs. Author of books on urban hinterlands. He loves the sea.

Renzo Piano, the father, architect. Has built cities all over the world. In this book he tells of an adventurous profession. He loves the sea and shared his passion with his son.