Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano, the architect of The Shard, is an Italian architect and engineer. He was born in Genoa, Italy, into a family of builders. His grandfather had created a masonry enterprise, which had been expanded by his father, Carlo Piano and his father's three brothers, into the firm Fratelli Piano. The firm prospered after World War II, constructing houses and factories and selling construction materials.

In 1971 the thirty-four year old Piano and Richard Rogers, thirty-eight, in collaboration with the Italian architect Gianfranco Franchini, competed with the major architectural firms in the United States and Europe, and were awarded the commission for the most prestigious project in Paris, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the new French national museum of 20th century art. The award came a surprise, to the architectural world, since the two were little-known, and had no experience with museums or other major structures. The New York Times declared that their design "turned the architecture world upside down" (Pogrebin, 2007). In 1977 Piano ended his collaboration with Rogers and began a new collaboration with engineer Peter Rice, who had assisted in the design of the Pompidou Center.

In 1998, Piano won the Pritzker Prize, often considered the Nobel Prize of architecture (Goldberger, 1988). The jury citation compared Piano to Michelangelo and da Vinci and credited him with "redefining modern and postmodern architecture." In 2006, Piano was selected by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world (Rogers, 2006). He was chosen as the 10th most influential person in the "Arts and Entertainment" category.
Reference:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/arts/design/28cnd-pritzker.html?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/29/arts/architecture-view-what-pritzker-winners-tell-us-about-the-prize.html

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1975813_1975838_1976210,00.html