Richard Rogers

Lloyd's building in 1991

Richard Rogers was born in Florence (Tuscany) in 1933 into an Anglo-Italian family. His father, William Nino Rogers (1906–1993), was the cousin of Italian architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers. His ancestors moved from Sunderland to Venice in about 1800, later settling in Trieste, Milan and Florence. In 1939 William Nino Rogers decided to come back to England.[2] Upon moving to England, Richard Rogers went to St Johns School, Leatherhead. Rogers did not excel academically, which made him believe that he was "stupid because he could not read or memorize his school work"[3] and as a consequence he stated that he became "very depressed".[3] He wasn't able to read until the age of 11,[4] and it was not until after he had his first child that he realised that he was dyslexic.[3] After leaving St Johns School, he undertook a foundation course at Epsom School of Art[5] (now University for the Creative Arts) before going into National Service between 1951 and 1953.[2] He then attended the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he gained the Architectural Association's Diploma (AA Dipl) from 1954 until 1959, subsequently graduating with a master's degree (M Arch) from the Yale School of Architecture in 1962 on a Fulbright Scholarship.[3][6] While studying at Yale, Rogers met fellow architecture student Norman Foster and planning student Su Brumwell.

After leaving Yale he joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York.[4] On returning to England in 1963, he, Norman Foster and Brumwell set up architectural practice as Team 4 with Wendy Cheeseman (Brumwell later married Rogers, Cheeseman married Foster).[7] Rogers and Foster earned a reputation for what was later termed by the media high-tech architecture.[8]

By 1967, Team 4 had split up, but Rogers continued to collaborate with Su Rogers, along with John Young and Laurie Abbott.[9] In early 1968 he was commissioned to design a house and studio for Humphrey Spender near Maldon, Essex, a glass cube framed with I-beams. He continued to develop his ideas of prefabrication and structural simplicity to design a Wimbledon house for his parents. This was based on ideas from his conceptual Zip-Up House,[10] such as the use of standardized components based on refrigerator panels to make energy-efficient buildings.

Pompidou Centre

Rogers subsequently joined forces with Italian architect Renzo Piano, a partnership that was to prove fruitful. His career leapt forward when he, Piano and Gianfranco Franchini won the design competition for the Pompidou Centre in July 1971, alongside a team from Ove Arup that included Irish engineer Peter Rice.[11]

This building established Rogers's trademark of exposing most of the building's services (water, heating and ventilation ducts, and stairs) on the exterior, leaving the internal spaces uncluttered and open for visitors to the centre's art exhibitions. This style, dubbed "Bowellism" by some critics, was not universally popular at the time the centre opened in 1977, but today the Pompidou Centre is a widely admired Parisian landmark. Rogers revisited this inside-out style with his design for London's Lloyd's building, completed in 1986 – another controversial design which has since become a famous and distinctive landmark in its own right.

Richard Rogers in 2013

After working with Piano, Rogers established the Richard Rogers Partnership along with Marco Goldschmied, Mike Davies and John Young in 1977.[12] This became Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners in 2007. The firm maintains offices in London, Shanghai and Sydney.

Rogers has devoted much of his later career to wider issues surrounding architecture, urbanism, sustainability and the ways in which cities are used. One early illustration of his thinking was an exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1986, entitled "London As It Could Be", which also featured the work of James Stirling and Rogers' former partner Norman Foster. This exhibition made public a series of proposals for transforming a large area of central London, subsequently dismissed as impractical by the city's authorities.

In 1995, he became the first architect to deliver the BBC's annual Reith Lectures. This series of five talks, titled Sustainable City, were later adapted into the book Cities for a Small Planet (Faber and Faber: London 1997, ISBN 0-571-17993-2). The BBC made these lectures available to the public for download in July 2011.[13]

The Senedd building

Rogers (left) with Queen Elizabeth II and Sue Essex AM (right), at the opening of the Senedd building

The steps leading up to the Senedd

In 1998, he set up the Urban Task Force at the invitation of the British government, to help identify causes of urban decline and establish a vision of safety, vitality and beauty for Britain's cities. This work resulted in a white paper, Towards an Urban Renaissance, outlining more than 100 recommendations for future city designers. Rogers also served for several years as chair of the Greater London Authority panel for Architecture and Urbanism. He has been chair of the board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation. From 2001 to 2008 he was chief advisor on architecture and urbanism to Mayor of London Ken Livingstone; he was subsequently asked to continue his role as an advisor by new mayor Boris Johnson in 2008. He stood down from the post in October 2009.[14] Rogers has also served as an advisor to two mayors of Barcelona on urban strategies.

Amidst this extra-curricular activity, Rogers has continued to create controversial and iconic works. Perhaps the most famous of these, the Millennium Dome, was designed by the Rogers practice in conjunction with engineering firm Buro Happold and completed in 1999. It was the subject of fierce political and public debate over the cost and contents of the exhibition it contained; the building itself cost £43 million.[15]

In May 2006, Rogers' practice was chosen as the architect of Tower 3 of the new World Trade Center in New York City, replacing the old World Trade Center which was destroyed in the September 11 attacks.

Some of Rogers's recent plans have failed to get off the ground. The practice was appointed to design the replacement to the Central Library in the Eastside of Birmingham; however, his plan was shelved for financial reasons. City Park Gate, the area adjacent to the land the library would have stood on, is now being designed by Ken Shuttleworth's Make Architects.

Rogers has written several books during his career including:

• Architecture: A Modern View, Thames & Hudson (1991) ISBN 9780500276518
• A New London (co-author Mark Fisher and the Labour Party), Penguin (1992) ISBN 9780140157949
• Cities for a Small Planet, Faber and Faber (1997) ISBN 9780571179930
• Towards an Urban Renaissance, Urban Task Force (1999) ISBN 9781851121656
• Cities for a Small Country, Faber and Faber (2000) ISBN 9780571206520
• Richard Rogers and Architects: From the House to the City, Fiell Publishing (2010) ISBN 9781906863111
• Architecture: A Modern View, Thames & Hudson (2013) ISBN 9780500342930

Rogers was knighted in 1991 by Queen Elizabeth II.[19][20] He was created Baron Rogers of Riverside, of Chelsea in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on 17 October 1996.[21] He sits as a Labour peer in the House of Lords.[22] Rogers was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2008 Birthday Honours list.[23]

Rogers was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1985. He has been twice honoured by France, first as a Chevalier, L’Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur in 1986, and later as an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995.[24] He received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 10th Mostra di Architettura di Venezia.[25] In 2006, the Richard Rogers Partnership was awarded the Stirling Prize for Terminal 4 of Barajas Airport,[26] and again in 2009 for Maggie's Centre in London.[27] He was also appointed as a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering[1] in 2005. In 2007 Rogers was made Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize – architecture's highest honour.[28] He was awarded the Minerva Medal by the Chartered Society of Designers in the same year. In 2012, Rogers was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork – the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover – to celebrate the British cultural figures of the last six decades.[29]

Rogers has been awarded honorary degrees from several universities, including Alfonso X El Sabio University in Madrid, Oxford Brookes University, the University of Kent, the Czech Technical University in Prague and the Open University. In 1994, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath.[30]

In February 2006, Rogers hosted the inaugural meeting of the campaigning organisation Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP) in his London offices. At that time his practice had secured a number of projects in New York, including the redevelopment of the Silvercup Studios site, a masterplan for the East River Waterfront and a commission for a $1.7 billion expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre in Manhattan. Rogers however publicly dissociated himself from the group within weeks, following an outcry from generally pro-Israeli New York voters and politicians, which threatened him with the loss of prestigious commissions including projects in New York and abroad.[31] He announced his withdrawal with the statement, "I unequivocally renounce Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine and have withdrawn my relationship with them."[32]

Rogers is married to Ruth Rogers, chef and owner of The River Café restaurant in west London. They have two sons together, Roo and Bo (deceased 2011).[33]

Rogers also has three sons, Ben, Zad and Ab, from his first marriage to Su Brumwell. Ben is the Director of Centre for London, the capital's dedicated think tank. He has thirteen grandchildren and a younger brother, Peter William Rogers, a property developer and co-founder of Stanhope.

In 2015, he was named one of GQ's 50 best dressed British men.[34]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Richard Rogers.

• Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners website
• Large list of major Richard Rogers skyscrapers with data and images
• Rogers, Stirk, Harbour and Partners projects portfolio
• Pritzker Prize 2007
• Richard Rogers presents the 2007 Annual Discourse at the Royal Institute of British Architects (video)
• The 1995 BBC Reith Lectures: Sustainable City by Richard Rogers
• Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections