a brilliant career spanning six decades perhaps Richard Rogers’ least remarkable achievement was to be the architect of ‘Cool Britannia’.
As such he oversaw the design of the Millennium Dome and, along with everyone else involved in the New Labour project, suffered the backlash when the opening night turned into what he called a ‘nightmare of nightmares’.
Lord Rogers was actually one of the greatest and most influential architects of the Second Half of the 20th Century.
Rogers, like Paul Smith, Rolls-Royce and David Beckham was a British icon of style and excellence in his field.
During a brilliant career spanning six decades perhaps Richard Rogers’ least remarkable achievement was to be the architect of ‘Cool Britannia’. He is pictured with his wife Ruth
Also, he was an example of the maxim that a prophet cannot always be recognised in his home country. His most celebrated – and controversial – creation, the Pompidou Centre, is to be found in the capital of our ancient rivals.
Rogers’ influence went beyond the design of extraordinary buildings. What had started as his London studio’s staff canteen became, under the guidance of his second wife Ruth Rogers, a zeitgeist eating place and Michelin-starred training ground for celebrity chefs. Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Theo Randall cut their teeth at the River Café.
Rogers’ life had drama and exoticism from the very start. He was born in Florence, Italy, in 1933 into what he described as a ‘rather spoiled upper middle class’ Anglo-Italian family. His paternal grandfather had been a dentist and had immigrated from England. Young Richard – never Riccardo – had an Anglophile upbringing.
Opposed to Mussolini and with war looming, the family moved to ‘smoggy and cold’ London, where they lived in far more modest circumstances. It was ‘hell at first’, he later recalled.
His most celebrated – and controversial – creation, the Pompidou Centre, is to be found in the capital of our ancient rivals
Rogers was undiagnosed as dyslexic and he left school with no A-levels. Rogers found his niche only after completing his National Service.
Thanks to his ability to speak Italian, he was posted to his mother’s home town of Trieste, under British and US military rule, where he was able to meet an architect cousin, Ernesto Rogers.
While on leave he worked in Ernesto’s office in Milan. Rogers returned to Britain and applied for the Architectural Association diploma program.
He was admitted despite his inability to obtain formal qualifications.
Su Brumwell was his student. In 1960, they were married and shortly after that left England for America where Rogers was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at Yale. While studying there for his Master’s, Rogers met another outstanding British student of architecture called Norman Foster.
Their mutual inspiration and brief working relationship were to have a profound impact on their profession and the world’s urban landscapes.
When they returned to Britain, Rogers and Foster, along with Su Rogers and Foster’s wife Wendy Cheeseman, formed a firm called Team 4. Although they ended the partnership before the decade had passed, it was a landmark step in their journey.
Rogers and Foster were the main figures of a British-led new school of architecture known as high tech architecture. This was the most important architectural movement in the 20th century.
Rogers, a young Italian architect, won the competition to design Paris’ new cultural centre.
The Pompidou Centre, which would later be known as it, was completed in 1977. The six-storey glass and multi-colored, multi-colored steel leviathan was already the object of some outrage from traditionalists.
Like the Parisian ‘blot’, the Dome – renamed The O2 arena – is now part of the London landscape and used by millions each year. Rogers did not ‘do’ regret, though he could be scathing of others’ projects
The prefabricated structure was less than a kilometre distant from Notre Dame.
The ‘guts’ had been turned inside out so that air conditioning, electrical and water systems and even the structural load bearing were on the exterior. An enclosed glass escalator that zigzagged from the ground to the roof was installed.
The centre housed Europe’s largest modern art museum. It was an art and provocative in its own right. Le Monde called it ‘an architectural King Kong’.
Rogers said later: ‘The shock of the new is always really rather difficult to get over. All good architecture is modern in its time.’ Parisians have come to love the Pompidou – or at least accept it as an eccentric part of the landscape. After the Pompidou, ‘everything changed’ for Rogers professionally. In Rogers’ private life, it had already made an impact.
He met Ruth Elias, a young American designer at a 1969 dinner party. He and Su fell in love, which led to their divorce. ‘The most painful thing I’ve ever done,’ he said. Ruth Rogers married Ruth in 1973. He had two additional boys. Bo died in 2011.
In 1986 Rogers delivered his second major project, the Lloyd’s building in London. It was a replica of the Pompidou and featured 12 glass lifts outside, which were the first in Britain.
In 1986 Rogers delivered his second major project, the Lloyd’s building in London. The exterior was just like the Pompidou. It featured 12 glass elevators which were unique in the UK.
The building was awarded Grade I listed status in 2011, making it the youngest UK building ever to receive this distinction.
Among a number of distinctive projects, Rogers’ firm designed the European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg and Terminal 5 at Heathrow.
In 1997, he was elected a Labour peer and quickly became a popular figure among the Blairites. However, his role as a creator in the Millennium Dome was only begun during the Tory previous administration. New Labour seized on the plan as a symbol of their political triumph in the age of ‘Cool Britannia’.
Rogers’ firm designed a 365 square metre, glass fibre tent on the Greenwich peninsula.
It was intended to be used as a gallery, displaying ideas and displays from other artists. Unfortunately, not all were able to walk. Worse was the grand opening, described as ‘one of the greatest PR disasters in history’.
On Millennium Eve, the great and good waited for hours to meet up in anticipation of the New Year. All those connected to the Dome were thrown into the fire.
Rogers said it reminded him of opening the Pompidou Centre. But like the Parisian ‘blot’, the Dome – renamed The O2 arena – is now part of the London landscape and used by millions each year. Rogers did not ‘do’ regret, though he could be scathing of others’ projects.
He loathed the Fenchurch building aka the ‘Walkie Talkie’ in London and lamented Prince Charles’s traditionalist influence. Nor did he apologise for being involved in some of the world’s most expensive private residential developments, such as One Hyde Park, in spite of his Leftist views.
He announced that he would be retiring from the 43-year-old practice in September 2020. He declared: “I will be enlightening myself and let them.” [his partners] go ahead.’ His retirement has been a short one. His legacy is deep.