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tv   HAR Dtalk  BBC News  November 16, 2017 4:30am-5:01am GMT

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is bbc news. the latest headlines: the african union has said the takeover of power by zimbabwe's army and detention of president robert mugabe "seems like a coup." many zimbabweans have grudgingly welcomed the move, and there've been no reports of serious violence. mr mugabe's wife grace, who was bidding to succeed him as president, is reported to have fled to namibia. 50,000 children under the age of five are expected to die in yemen this year, according to the charity, save the children. the saudi—led coalition has been asked by the un to lift its blockade of yemen's sea ports immediately so vitalfood aid can get in. a painting by leonardo da vinci has sold at auction in new york for $400,000. that's the highest price ever paid for a work of art. salvator mundi, or saviour of the world, has been dubbed the "male mona lisa". now on bbc news, it is hardtalk.
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my guest today, renzo piano, is the architect of that building. the london shard. he is one of the world's most accomplished architects. he is used to dividing opinion. he designed paris's poverty centre. he has taken on high—profile developments all over the world. his latest creation is already loved, but it is also loathed. 0ne critic described it as a monument to wealth and power, run way out of control. what does it say about us and why build so big? renzo piano, welcome to hardtalk.
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this building is tall. it is now the tallest in the european union. why? what is the statement by building it so tall? i don't really remember. the reason why it is the tallest, i don't remember. i don't really care. it was actually taller in the beginning. but then they said that you cannot because it would interfere with the flight paths. we stopped. the building is now 310 metres. we still decided to go up to 400. it was almost not finished. people believe it is not finished. simply desiring to go higher, but not going higher. this idea that a building
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does not finish. it stands like that. the last piece of glass goes like that. if you need them to go, they can go up. this is part of the game. we did not try to make the tallest building in europe. itjust happened by chance? it happened by chance. also because if you want to put all of those functions, because this building has at least six or seven different functions. it is like a little vertical city. it is like a village. you have transportation, —— you have transportation, public transportation — you come up and you have trains and buses. you have shops. you have offices. you have a public space. you have a hotel. and then we have the viewing platform.
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it is a long time since you first drew the plans for it. when you are designing something and thinking about what it must look like, you are now in a situation for the past few months where it is approaching completeness, how do you feel about it? as an architect, if you make something wrong it is wrong forever. if you are a musician, you make music. you understand that something is wrong. what you do is the real thing. then you do it again. when you make a sculpture, what is in front of you is the sculpture. if you are making architecture, you do notjudge the real thing. you judge the drawing of the real thing. the model. the rendering. you have to use your imagination. you need to figure out what it will be in reality.
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that would suggest that if there is something wrong with it, you cannot fix it. exactly. that's the tragedy. that's the reason why, as an architect, it is a very dangerous job. dangerous for you, but even more dangerous for other people. if you do something wrong, it is forever. what did you think when you saw it? i think it is fine. i stopped crossing my fingers a few months ago. you do everything you can to make it right. but the truth is that you understand if it is right or wrong only then. when it's built. i'll tell you if i think it is right. but i did not know exactly. i wasn't sure. to listen to you, you seem to think it might not perhaps be good enough? what is wrong with it? in school, i grew up
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with the idea that other people are always better than you. i grew up with the idea that what you do is maybe fine. surprisingly fine. but probably not good enough. so you grow up thinking that other people are better than you. even now, 75, i still feel that every time i do something right, it is a miracle. it is something surprising. i do not live in the sensation that everything i do is right. it is always a great surprise. it would be quite hard to live in that. not least because of some of the comments made. particularly one of the criticisms that it is out of proportion. here you are outside the tower bridge and st paul's. and you have this massive glass shard.
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the chairman of the national trust said that this tower is anarchy. it conforms to no planning policy. it seems to have lost its way from dubai to canary wharf. i know that criticism. i think it is wrong. one of the most important things for an architect because we are making a dangerous job is to listen to people. it is one of the most important things of the work. it is easiest to learn. it does not mean you listen and then you are obedient. you listen to understand. one thing you do when you do this kind of building is to listen to people and accept criticism. for thisjob, we went through a public inquiry. it lasted almost two years. a public inquiry is not something unusual in this country. you do it for big and complicated things.
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they decided to do this. the arguments were brought out. the argument was whether it was right or wrong. another criticism levelled against it is that in a sense it is a metaphor for wealth and power. an art critic says it is a monument to wealth and power runaway out of control. a flashing warning sign of disease. yeah, you know, ithink of different things. on this one, i think there is a lot of distortion on this one. when you go through this building and you realise that what is open to the viewing platform will be visited by 5,000 people per day. the office will be used by something like 5,000 people per day. they are not rich people. you have to pay £25. £25 is too much. in this town, everything costs £25.
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i told them it was too much. i tried. what did they say? everybody says that in this town, everything costs at least £25. but it doesn't. i told my colleague, i was with my wife to go around to all of those little shows on the bottom. they all cost £25—30. the london eye costs £28—30. it is too expensive. i agree because one of the aims of this building is to give it to the people.
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and to be public. and for some, costing £25 is too much. that is for sure. but argument is that anyawy, that this is the normal price. if you go to new york, if you go to the top of the empire state building, you spend more than that. one of the things discussed is that whether it is a metaphor to wealth and power, rather than to the people. i think it is wrong. we got something a bit too moralistic. if you look more carefully, you will find that this building will be used every day by ten thousand people at least. how much of the building has been let out? i think it is only the restaurant... the hotel? the hotel. this part, the others, they are still discussing. but they are not let
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because they do not find a tenant. they are not let because they have their own policy. the policy of those people being that they wait for the right moment to rent and all that. they want it to be empty? is that what you're saying? yes. up until the building being finished. the building will be finished in about six months. the hotel will open in june. the official public opening of this building was last summer. we have not heard anything about the occupants. it is like a city. you do not open a building in a single day. you bring energy across the river. and then, then you make public transportation. then you make a vertical city. it is not one of those buildings that closes in the evening. and you know, i think that all of this discussion about the fact that this building
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is a kind of monument to money isjust a distortion. because... it will not be proven by events, you say? yes, for sure. i am very pragmatic. and i am very keen about that, because at my age, i grew up knowing that by making architecture, you have to be a good builder. your father was a builder. you have to be a poet, but you have to be militant. you have to be a social worker. you have to have this kind of ethical dimension. the argument is very simple. this building will be lived daily by 10,000 people per day. some will be rich. but no more than 50 or 60 people. you have made so many different types of buildings all around the world. you look at your work, whether it's art galleries, museums in the united states,
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churches in europe, an airport terminal injapan... you look at them and they are all unique. there is no singular or something that would stand out as a renzo piano style of architecture. and i wonder if when you look at all of those, what is most rewarding? is it that you see, from what you said before it is not the tallest building, not the most striking... yeah, i think that what is rewarding to me is to be part of the human adventure of architecture. you know, the reason why — why — why i... i am very diffident towards style, not just for architecture, but for everybody, is a kind of golden cage. you get trapped in the style. and then you have to repeat it. what is great about architecture or a job likejournalism or movie—making is the adventure. the sense of adventure.
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the architect is like a kind of like a robinson crusoe. robinson crusoe landed in a new island every time and made a new adventure. that is exactly what happens. if you are trapped in your own style, you have to repeat it. is it changing people's lives? if you ask me about language and style, there is a lot of this language of coherence coming from... much of that comes from my childhood. i was born in genoa, in a city of sea and water, where everything flies. it is a fantastic city.
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stone and water. stone in the historical centre, water in the harbour. everything floats, everything flies, from the ships to the cranes, they do not touch ground, the ships are buoyed. if you look at my age for what i can call, not style, but coherence, language, and... and yet here we are in a building that is very much of a certain fashion, the glass. prince charles has said, i'm afraid that the building tends very quickly to become unfashionable, tired, outdated, no longer contemporary. it is ripe for demolition and replacement. he also refers to energy guzzling glass boxes.
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i remember the world of the judge. they made thejudgement of the public inquiry. thejudge after 18 months of discussion, he said, even st paul's at the time was modern. and it was controversial. if it is good, it is good. every classic has been at a certain moment modern and contemporary. will this become a classic like st paul's cathedral? no idea. i'd be arrogant to say so. i am saying for me the problem is not to be classical or to be modern, it is to be good or to be bad. if you are good, there is nothing wrong. european cities have layers
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of different moments, celebrating and representing their time. the problem is whether you are good or not. i do not trust prince charles'sjudgement. i think this building will be great for centuries. it's not arrogant. it is actually very light, it is like a crystal presence, it is not killing anything. it is very gentle. so you do not trust his judgement on this building, do you trust hisjudgement on other architecture? he's quite right on many points by criticising modern architecture... we have to be honest. it's created disasters in the past. but you cannot turn your back... i prefer not to talk
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too much about that. i know that in everybody‘s judgement, there is always something good to take, but for me, but there is one thing important, you have to be yourself. if you live in a time that is the 21st century, you have to belong to it. what is quite interesting is that you are talking about vertical cities. in a way, that was a fashion at a certain time, streets in the sky. now there is a move away from high—rises because people do not want to live on top of each other. you can create denser, more efficient, better living space with old —fashioned terraces. this is wrong. i am sorry. it is totally wrong. today, the 21st century,
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the most important discovery is the fragility of earth. the most unsustainable thing that you can think of are the periphery, the sprawl of little cottages and houses. forget it. it is impossible. it is not sustainable in any sense. it's just a romantic idea. so in energy terms, a glass building like this is better? it spends 10 times less. it is better than little villas. this building, with the system we use for keeping the things out is incredibly efficient... even if you are tackling the problems of the banlieue, paris suburbs, you would suggest that you put these high—rises, you would create cities
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on the peripheries? i am not saying so. the solution of the cities is not to make a new periphery. it is not solved by making new periphery and creating new tragedy. the solution is not expansion by explosion. the solution is expansion by implosion. the opposite. it is the only sustainable road. especially in a city like london. it is to grow from inside, building on what we call brownfield. in brownfield, in london, lots of brownfields. even in berlin, i built on brownfield.
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it was the little space left between the east and west. in cities, dense like barcelona... there is always the possibility to grow. it doesn't mean that i preach the value of putting tall buildings everywhere. i say that sometimes. a building like this one, it makes sense to go up and show... can i ask you finally about how you judge the success of a building? because i happened to recognise you outside out on the street. you were spying on people, listening to hear what they were
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saying about it? is that how you judge the success? not because i am a perverse person, but i learnt that a long time ago after i did the pompidou centre in paris, roberto rossellini, he was making a movie. he was watching me. he said, you should not look at the building, you should see the face of people looking at the building. you have to look at the mirror of the building on the face of people. since then, i did the same thing. i do it in the most natural way i can.
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i listen and i watch people. what do you see? surprise, wonder. not fear. many say, oh, this is the way, we are here. they use the building as a new reference in this city. they find their way by it. sometimes they argue over whether it is finished. the problem is very simple. i do not like to surprise people. i don't like to be controversial. but if you are an architect, and you don't waste your time with stupid things, you find
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yourself celebrating shifts in the society. in some way, that is what happened. a long time ago, and we were young bad boys, we got to celebrate a big shift in society. with the pompidou centre. it changed the way that people thought of you. caused a big fuss. someone had to do the dirtyjob. we need a place creating curiosity and welcome. in between, i had done many other things like that, in chicago. here, it is the same thing. as an architect, you don't change the world, but celebrate the change. renzo piano, thank you for coming on hardtalk. hi there.
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for many of us it is going to be another pretty cloudy start to the day on thursday, but there will be some significant weather changes, because this cold front is going to be sliding its way southwards as we go on through the day and behind that we're going to see the skies turning much brighter with much more in the way of sunshine. before we get there, though, for the early rises, we've got a few fog patches knocking around, across south—east england, this morning. a lot of cloud too. there's the band of rain affecting northern ireland and scotland first thing. this band of rain, remember, will clear southward and then it's going to brighten up with sunshine. so let's see how things progress through the morning. that band of rain will be moving away from northern ireland,
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but heading in across wales, where it will turn wet through thursday morning. there will be some brighter spells, perhaps across south—west england, maybe across the midlands as well. but for east anglia and south—east england, probably quite a grey start to the day, either with low cloud or with fog first thing in the morning. the rain across northern england could be quite heavy for a time during the morning. behind that, the skies brighten up significantly but it's not completely dry in scotland. here there will be a number of showers, particularly across north—western areas of the country, blustery winds setting in here as well. through the rest of thursday, our band of rain pushes southwards. now there could be a few breaks in the clouds ahead of that band of rain. and in any case, as the rain band works towards south—east england, probably arriving in the london area around four o'clock in the afternoon, you can see there's barely any rain left on it. to the north, as the sunshine comes out, down go the temperatures. 6—9 degree celsius in those sunnier moment in the north of the uk. during thursday evening, the band of rain finally clears away from south—east england. with clear skies, it's going to be a cold night. towns and cities temperatures
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getting down to three degrees or so, in london. 0ut into the countryside, the lowest temperatures could get down to —5, in the very coldest spots. i think there will be a fairly widespread frost in the country, perhaps not so in scotland because here there's going to be fairly brisk winds. and those winds will be with us on into friday as well. bringing plenty of blustery showers across northern and western areas. but for most of us, friday is a decent end to the week, really, with plenty of sunshine around. temperatures a little below par for the time of the year. we're looking at highs between 7—10 celsius. the weekend weather prospects not looking too bad. most of us will see some sunshine but, again, there will be some showers knocking around, particularly across northern and western areas and quite a chilly wind to boot on saturday and maybe some rain arriving late in the day on sunday in the west. saturday then a reasonable start to the weekend, temperatures 6—10 degrees celsius. sunny spells and just a few showers pushing southward during the day. that's your latest weather. bye for now. zimbabwe's military is in full control of the country.
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robert mugabe, president for nearly a0 years, remains under house arrest. climate change is inevitable, even if we drastically cut co2 emissions. a new environmental report makes grim reading. selling for $400 million, that is the better, and this is sold! -- thatis the better, and this is sold! -- that is the bid. the world's most expensive artwork. a long—lost painting by leonardo da vinci sells at auction
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