Remembering Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers

We celebrate the life and career of Richard Rogers, one of the most
influential architects of our era and winner of the 2007 Pritzker Prize, who
passed away on 18 December 2021 at age 88.

Renowned architect Richard Rogers best known for his outstanding work
and designing some of the most world famous buildings passed away at
the age of 88, on 18 December, 2021 in London, England. He was an
Italian born British architect born in Florence, Tuscany into an Anglo-Italian
family in 1933. He was noted for his modernist and functionalist designs in
high-tech architecture and for his project on the Pompidou Centre in Paris,
the Lloyd’s building and Millennium Dome both in London, the Senedd
building in Cardiff, and the European Court of Human Rights building in
Strasbourg.
His brilliant career began at the Architectural Association in London, and he
continued in the United States at Yale University. While in Yale he met the
also British Norman Foster, and after graduating, the two architects joined
Su Brumwell and Wendy Cheeseman to form Team 4 (1963).
Architects around the world paid tribute to him from which, his fellow
architect Norman Foster said, a “kindred spirit” whose buildings are “a
social mirror” of his personality- “open, welcoming and, like his wardrobe,
elegantly colorful”.
Describing Rogers as “a tireless supporters of the compact, sustainable,
pedestrian-friendly city and a passionate opponent of mindless suburban
sprawl”, Foster said that he had “fire in his belly… up to the very end”.

Balance and rhythm turn out to be the concepts in which Richard Rogers
articulates the architectural narrative regarding his projects. “Designing
involves understanding the particular language that architecture speaks,
together with the aim of placing each piece in harmony with its
surroundings. The result is a formal, visual and functional narration which is
told in every space.” His studio has its offices in London, Madrid, Shanghai
and Sydney.
He was a winner of the RIBA Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the
RIBA Stirling Prize, the Minerva Medal, and Pritzker Prize. He was a Senior
Partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, previously known as the
Richard Rogers Partnership, until 30 June 2020.
It is a huge loss for the architecture industry and he will be thoroughly
missed.