Richard Rogers - TrustNews Summer 1999
An introduction to the speaker at this year's AGM:
The Lord Rogers of Riverside
Lord Rogers photo by Dan Stevens
Richard Rogers was born in Florence, Italy in 1933. He received a diploma in Architecture from the Architectural Association in London, and a Masters from Yale University USA. Best known for his pioneering buildings with Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and since 1978 with his colleagues at the Richard Rogers Partnership, now some 100 strong, he has maintained a lifelong commitment to the relationship between architecture, the environment, culture and society. In parallel to his prime activity as an architect and urban designer he has been closely involved in the UK's major arts and public organisations. He was Chairman of the Tate Gallery from 1981 to 1989, Deputy Chairman of the Arts Council of England from 1994 to 1997 and is Chairman of the Architecture Foundation, The National Tenants Resource Centre and the Government Urban Task Force. The first architect to be invited to give the BBC Reith Lectures in 1995, 'Cities for a Small Planet', Rogers argued for a more equitable and sustainable approach to the built environment, placing the design of cities at the heart of the public and political agenda. He addresses some of the environmental and social problems of today's cities and discusses ways in which architects and planners can act together to curb the disintegration of urban life and enhance sustainability.
In 1971, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano were the winners of an international competition for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, a museum, library and information centre. Is was proposed that over half the site area be given over to a public piazza. The building has been visited by over 100 million people since its completion in 1976.
The Richard Rogers Partnership, formed in 1977, has been responsible for award-winning public and private buildings in Europe, Asia and the USA, including Lloyd's of London (London, 1978), the Kabucki-Cho Tower (Tokyo, 1993) and Channel 4 Headquarters (London, 1994), the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg, 1995) and Law Courts in Bordeaux (1998). His work is based on the use of appropriate technologies to reduce energy consumption, maximise social potential and respond to changing patterns of use and activity.
The commitment to the public realm and sustainable design underpins a series of urban masterplans in cities around the world. These include the masterplan for Pu dong Financial District in Shanghai, the radical ecological proposals for ParcBIT in Majorca and visionary plans for the centre of London, originally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1986.
Richard Rogers has published and lectured widely. He has received numerous international awards, including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (1985), the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Legion 'd'Honneur (1986) and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Medal In Architecture (1999). He is the author of 'A Modern View', 'A New London' and 'Cities for a Small Planet'. In 1991 he was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen for his contributions to architecture and was made a life peer in 1996.
Richard Rogers Partnership
The practice has built a wide range of projects from low cost industrial units to prestige headquarters buildings; from highly technical laboratories to sensitive landscape proposals; from Cultural Centres to speculative office developments and from airport planning to restoration of historic monuments. As much as 50% of commissions are for projects abroad in Germany, France, the Far East and the USA and almost a third of the work is for commercial developers.
The practice's reputation for thorough analysis and innovative problem solving has been gained through often exhaustive consideration of each project from first principles. Lloyds of London required a building which would be capable of leading a then expanding insurance market into the 2 1 st century. A range of options were presented and rigorously debated with the client at regular meetings, until the final solution to the specific demands of the brief was agreed. A strategy was adopted which allowed the market place to expand and contract according to the unpredictable market forces, the same space accommodating 8 times as many people when performing as a market as when converted to normal office space.
The Bordeaux scheme provided an opportunity to preserve and enhance a sensitive historic setting. Other work with historic buildings includes the award-winning conversion and restoration of Billingsgate Fish Market in the City of London, and most recently the dramatic development of the site at 71 Fenchurch Street - new headquarters for Lloyds Register of Shipping - involving the sensitive conservation of a fine Edwardian structure allied to the dramatic form of an elegant new office block.
A keen interest in the regeneration of the urban landscape has informed many masterplanning projects. In Berlin the practice produced a masterplan for Potsdamer Platz and is now designing three blocks on the adopted masterplan by Renzo Piano for the site owned by Daimler Benz. In London, the practice is master-planning and redeveloping the Greenwich Peninsula for English Partnerships and is also responsible for the design of the Millennium Dome.