Chaos and Culture: Renzo Piano Building Workshop and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens

In 2006 the Stavros Niarchos Foundation announced its gift of a new cultural center in Athens to house both Greek National Library and the Greek National Opera House within a forty-acre landscaped public park. Two years later, with designers and engineers in place and the project underway, the Greek economy collapsed.
 
In Chaos and Culture, Victoria Newhouse weaves a fascinating narrative of how a philanthropist and an extraordinary design team became convinced that architect…