A major competition for ideas was launched, in which, for the first time in our country, architects from throughout the world were invited to participate. 681 competitors from 49 different countries presented projects.
A project involving three associated architects was selected by the international jury, chaired by the architect-engineer Jean Prouvé: two Italians, Renzo Piano and Gianfranco Franchini, and an Englishman, Richard Rogers, all virtually unknown at the time. Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers oversaw practically the entire MANAGEMENT of the project and then went on to lead distinguished careers in their own rights, each winning the prestigious Pritzker Prize, the highest distinction in the field of architecture.
Today considered one of the emblematic buildings of the 20th Century and taken to their hearts by Parisians, the Piano and Rogers building, often compared by critics to an oil refinery, was the subject of huge controversy throughout the 1970s.