Handing over a creative company : the case of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop

The day he turned sixty, the architect Renzo Piano told his staff that he wanted to start the process of handing over his company. This posed a problem because the company was very strongly associated with the man himself as he was in charge of the artistic management of all the projects, and was the only link between the company’s Paris and Genoa offices. No example of successful business transference of creative companies exists in Europe because this process is difficult. The approach which Renzo Piano took is interesting because it relies not only on transferring a style or a name, but passing on the means and work processes which have gradually developed at the same time as Piano’s works which rely on a team, a specific way of functioning and a collective know-how. Fourteen years after he started thinking about the hand-over, ideas have matured, choices have been made, and times have changed. The process of handing over the company is ready, but there is still no guarantee of success.