I mean, I was greenhousepilled long before Lacaton & Vassal. When I first moved to New York there was a derelict greenhouse on the roof of a building underneath the Roosevelt Island tram that I convinced myself I could rent and fix up for practically nothing, I’m sure that’s how real estate works. I had stacks of Global Architecture, the most expensive magazine in the world (after FMR, obv). I lived on a greenhouse-studded, terraced hill overlooking the Mediterranean.
So I knew about Renzo Piano’s Genoa studio (1989-1991) almost as soon as I left the Menil (1987).
Yet I somehow never saw the funicular conference room until this morning. Absolutely off the charts.
By now, with the Fondazione in Villa Nave, the red building between the funicular and the beach, the whole of Punta Nave is a Renzo Piano compound, from the autostrada to the sea. And Google Street View, from the gated pullout around the bend and the tunnel, is completely invisible. Just incredible.