Biography
In 1938 the family moved from Italy to England. After graduating from school, Rogers studied architecture at the Architectural Association School in London. He later moved to the renowned Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, with the help of a Fulbright scholarship. He was, among other things, a student of Serge Chermayeff. After graduating, Rogers moved to San Francisco. In the same year he designed numerous buildings and projects. Among other things, university buildings that he planned together with the renowned British architect Sir Norman Foster bear his design signature. Other planning and construction tasks included buildings for research institutes, research laboratories and industrial buildings in the USA, France and England.
In 1963, Rogers opened the office community "Team 4" together with his wife Su and the architect couple Wendy and Sir Norman Foster. The most significant industrial project to emerge during this period was the Reliance Control Factory in Swindon, Wilshire (1967). In the same year he took part in the Paris Biennale and represented the British architects. During this time, the Team 4 office disbanded and Rogers founded the office "Su & Richard Rogers". In addition to his planning work, Rogers also held various teaching positions such as at the University of Cambridge, at the Architectural Association School in London, at the Polytechnic in London, at the renowned Yale University, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University. One of his joint developments with his wife at the end of the 1960s was a light house that consisted of elements made of plastic rings and could be designed extremely flexibly.
In 1971 he further developed it under the name "Zip-up". In 1968/69, Rogers built his own home in the London district of Wimbledon, which consists of a painted steel frame and plastic infills. From 1969 onward, Rogers designed several collaborative projects with the famous Italian architect Renzo Piano, but these remained unrealized. They applied together for the competition project Center National d'Arts et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris, which they also won. The design and realization (1971-1977) established Rogers' international reputation. The Pompidou Building became one of the most visited buildings in the world in the post-war period. At the end of this extraordinary construction project, the collaboration with Piano also dissolved. Rogers set up his own office in London under the name "Richard Rogers & Partners".
Rogers designed a monumental high-rise complex for the insurance company Lloyd's (1979-1986) in London. This building cemented his world-renowned reputation as a star architect. His other completed projects include the Inmos Microprocessor Factory in Newport Swent in South Wales, the PA Technology Laboratories and Corporate Facility in Princeton in New Jersey and the construction of the PA Technology Cambridge Laboratory in Cambridge, which was built in three phases in 1975 -was completed in 1983. Rogers' subsequent plans also included the design of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin with an extensive residential and office complex as transparent glass architecture. In his view of progress and scientific optimism, the British architect often constructs and designs his projects with visible technology, which gives them an extremely unusual appearance.
Construction grids, supply parts highlighted in bright colors or transparent tubes act as striking design features. Rogers then acted as an urban planning warning in the face of rapid population growth, increasing environmental pollution, diminishing resources and increasing social antagonisms. In lectures around the world, he called for sustainable architecture and well-considered urban planning in order to achieve greater environmental sustainability and fairer distribution of goods. Rogers places holistic demands on the future architecture of dynamic cities, according to which, in addition to the aestheticization of public space, it must also fulfill profound requirements such as ecology, protection from traffic or social compatibility. In April 2007, he expanded his partnership and changed the name to "Rogers Stirk Harbor & Partners." That same year, Rogers was awarded the prestigious Pritzker Prize.
