The Menil Collection, the first volume of the collection devoted to museums, was published in 2007.

Like all the monographs edited and published by the Renzo Piano Foundation, the volume was produced by drawing on unpublished material in the archives: sketches, models, construction documents, and first-hand testimonies by the leading figures involved in the project.

This is how the story of a fundamental building in Renzo Piano's story is told.

From the collaboration with collector Dominique De Menil, who asked for a museum that would be “small outside and big inside,” to the first experiments with the theme of zenithal lighting, the project is reconstructed chronologically at every stage, from idea to inauguration, through a long story told in images. The principal text, which runs without a break at the end of the book, is Renzo Piano’s own account, recorded and transcribed faithfully for this book. The reader is thus guided by his voice to discover this unique museum.