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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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In-depth documentaries which explore music, history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature.

Sunday Feature: Renzo Piano's Music Boxes

05/05/2013

Renzo Piano's Music Boxes

BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Renzo Piano's Music Boxes

Tom Service investigates how architect Renzo Piano uses music to inspire his buildings.

Piano's Music Boxes: Tom Service discovers how the architect behind The Shard, Renzo Piano, sees the basic elements of music as fundamental to how he thinks about his buildings.

Renzo Piano is the architect behind the tallest building in Western Europe, the skyscraper on the South Bank of the Thames at London Bridge - The Shard. From a family of builders, he grew up wanting to be a musician, and Tom Service discovers how he sees the basic elements of music as fundamental to his way of thinking about his buildings.

Piano talks about realising the connection between architecture and the condition of music. He believes the two different disciplines share the same desires - the desire of precision, mathematics, geometry, but also the same desire to fly and to be light.

His landmark buildings include cultural centres and concert halls around the world. Tom visits IRCAM in Paris, and the Parco della musica in Rome, meeting Piano's fellow architects, the acousticians, and the musicians who use the buildings to tell a story about the relationship between music and space, sound and architecture.

Producer: Jeremy Evans

First broadcast in May 2013.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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