It would be ridiculous to describe Renzo Piano's architecture as organic. His approach to nature is eminently scientific. He tries to find inspiration in it to solve technical problems, but never simply formal ones. The forms of his buildings - he insistently repeats - are 'natural', but they are not taken directly from nature.

The sports pavilion in Ravenna, however, is practically the same as the curved shell of a scallop carefully split in two by its axis of symmetry, but the formal result is the fruit of structural research in search of a light and, in part, self-supporting roof.

It is circular in plan, and at one end of the main diameter there are two authentic sources of ribs that radiate towards the other end, curving slightly both vertically and horizontally. Each of the ribs has a V-shaped section whose arms form a very tight angle at the beginning that opens up progressively until it is practically horizontal at the end...[+]