Italian architect Renzo Piano has been selected to design the new Center for Arts and Innovation in Boca Raton, Florida.
The multi-million dollar creative campus in downtown Boca Raton will have performance and event spaces, both indoor and outdoor, as well as an innovation incubator lab and educational spaces for STEAM programming.
Renzo Piano and his studio, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, will start work on the new cultural destination in late October 2023. The team plans to break ground in 2025.
“Innovation is a deep-rooted tradition in South Florida,” said The Center 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.”
Located next to the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the venue is estimated to create more than $1.3 billion in overall economic impact in the area within its first five years of opening.
Renzo Piano was chosen for the project from a shortlisted group made up of architecture studios Ennead Architects, Foster + Partners and OMA.
“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.
“Innovation is a deep-rooted tradition in South Florida”
Antoine Chaaya, the partner in charge from Renzo Piano’s studio, added: “Culture and art are essential – they shape our society, improve our quality of life, influence our behavior in making us more human, and help us to better connect to one another.
“The programming of The Center and its architecture must play in harmony, so that the project becomes a cultural and artistic destination. It is to become a place of inspiration that fosters creativity, where ideas can be inseminated and born.”
Renzo Piano Building Workshop is the design team behind museums including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.