Italian architect Renzo Piano has been selected to design an expansive arts and culture centre for Boca Raton, Florida.
To be located in downtown Boca Raton, The Center for Arts and Innovation (The Center) will serve as a community space and welcome centre and contain performance and event spaces, an innovation incubator lab for “entrepreneurial empowerment” and educational spaces for STEAM programming.
The spaces will be able to accommodate 6,000 guests.
“We are proud and honored to be the selected design architects for The Center for Arts and Innovation in Boca Raton, and we are eager to start working on this exciting project,” said Piano in a release.
According to a statement from The Center’s Board, it will build upon South Florida’s history of innovation and other recent developments in the area, which includes the 1968 IBM manufacturing campus designed by Marcel Breuer and Robert Gatje and the establishment of a newly opened rail train station.
“Innovation is a deep-rooted tradition in South Florida,” said board member Matt Cimaglia.
“Having grown up in the city, I can attest to its inspirational power to fuel discovery and achievement across art, business, culture, and technology. The Center will reflect, harness and fuel that uniquely innovative spirit.”
Renzo Piano and his studio Renzo Piano Building Workshop were selected for the project from a shortlisted group made up of architecture studios Ennead Architects, Foster + Partners and OMA.
The project was first conceptualised in 2018. The site was earmarked for “creative infrastructure”, which the board said only a “portion” of has been filled.
Renzo Piano is known for designing buildings around the world such as the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Shard in London and more recently a museum in Istanbul as well as the studio’s first residential tower in New York City. He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998.
Of late, the architect takes just two commissions per year.
The studio will begin work on The Center in October 2023, with a groundbreaking planned for 2025.
The photo is via Flickr
