Ontario's Court of Justice is set to vacate Old City Hall in 2021, making way for the city to build a new, Toronto-centric museum inside its 129-year-old Romanesque Revival building.
Renzo Piano Building Workshop, their first project in Canada, working with NORR Architects and Engineers of Toronto, as part of the EllisDon Infrastructure Team, have been selected by Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of the Attorney General to design, build, finance and maintain the new Toronto Courthouse.

The high profile project is situated in Toronto’s downtown core, just steps from Nathan Phillips Square and Toronto City Hall, and will become a key element of the downtown civic precinct. The new state of the art facility will consolidate several existing facilities, thus modernizing the administration of justice for Torontonians and the Province of Ontario.
 
Lasting over a year, the collaborative design process conducted between Paris and Toronto has produced a strong architectural vision for the site by maximizing exterior public space, improving the streetscape on Centre Avenue and Chestnut Street and strengthening the links and relationship between the courthouse and the city. In particular, a 20m tall atrium enclosed by a highly transparent glazed facade creates an immediate and strong image which will extend the public realm into the building, as well as expressing the public nature of the courthouse within the city.
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Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937 to a family of builders. He graduated Milan Polytechnic in 1964 and began to work with experimental light-weight structures and basic shelters. In 1971, he founded the Piano & Rogers studio and, together with Richard Rogers, won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From the early 1970s to the 1990s, Piano collaborated with engineer Peter Rice, founding Atelier Piano & Rice in 1977. In 1981, he established the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with offices today in Genoa, Paris and New York. Renzo Piano has been awarded the highest honors in architecture, including; the Pritzker Prize; RIBA Royal Gold Medal; Medaille d’Or, UIA; Erasmus Prize; and most recently, the Gold Medal of the AIA.

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The Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) was established in 1981 by Renzo Piano with offices in Genoa, Italy and Paris, France. The practice has since expanded and now also operates from New York.

RPBW is led by 10 partners, including founder and Pritzker Prize laureate, architect Renzo Piano.

The practice permanently employs about 130 architects together with a further 30 support staff including 3D visualization artists, model makers, archivers, administrative and secretarial staff.

Their staff has a wide experience of working in multi-disciplinary teams on building projects in France, Italy and abroad.

As architects, they are involved in the projects from start to finish. They usually provide full architectural design services and consultancy services during the construction phase. Their design skills extend beyond mere architectural services. Their work also includes interior design services, town planning and urban design services, landscape design services and exhibition design services.

RPBW has successfully undertaken and completed over 140 projects around the world.

Currently, among the main projects in progress are: the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles; the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay; the Paddington Square in London and; the Toronto Courthouse.

Major projects already completed include: the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas; the Kanak Cultural Center in Nouméa, New Caledonia; the Kansaï International Airport Terminal Building in Osaka; the Beyeler Foundation Museum in Basel; the reconstruction of the Potsdamer Platz area in Berlin; the Rome Auditorium; the New York Times Building in New York; the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco; the Chicago Art Institute expansion in Chicago, Illinois; The Shard in London; Columbia University’s Manhattanville development project in New York City; the Harvard museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Intesa Sanpaolo office building in Turin, Italy; the Kimbell Art Museum expansion in Texas; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Valletta City Gate in Malta; the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center in Athens; the Centro Botín in Santander; the New Paris Courthouse and others throughout the world.

Exhibitions of Renzo Piano and RPBW’s works have been held in many cities worldwide, including at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2018.
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Published on: February 28, 2018
Cite: "Toronto is getting a stunning new courthouse designed by Renzo Piano" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/toronto-getting-a-stunning-new-courthouse-designed-renzo-piano> ISSN 1139-6415
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