he designed paris's pompidou centre. he has taken on high—profile developments all over the world.is latest creation is already loved, but it is also loathed. one critic described it as a monument to wealth and power, run way out of control. so what does it say about us and why build so big? renzo piano, welcome to hardtalk. now, this building is tall. it's now the tallest, now, in the european union. why? what — what's the statement by building it so tall? i don't really remember. the reason why is the tallest, i don't remember. i don't really care. it was — it was actually taller, in the beginning. it was 400 metre. but then they said that you cannot because it would interfere with the flight of aeroplanes. so we stopped. the building is now 310 metres. we still desired to go up to 400. so this idea was almost not finished. some people believe it is not finished. but it is simply desiring to go higher, but not going higher. this idea that a building does not finish. it stands like that. the last piece of glass stays like there. if you need them to go, they can go up. this is part

with the pompidou centre. it changed the way that people thought of you. caused a big fuss. 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. 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