In the penultimate video of a series we shot in 2013 with Richard Rogers, the late British architect reflects on his career and legacy.
Rogers, who died on December 18 at the age of 88, was one of the world’s most famous architects, best known for his high-tech architecture.
Among his most famous works are the Center Pompidou in Paris, which he designed with Italian architect Renzo Piano, and the Lloyd’s Building in London.
For the video series, the Pritzker Architecture Prize winner spoke to Dezeen of Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners studio in west London.
In this interview, filmed in 2013 to coincide with a retrospective of his work at the Royal Academy of Art in London, Rogers argues that shifts in societal attitudes over the past 50 years have altered the course of the profession.
He also spoke about his most notable personal professional accomplishments which include establishing a collaborative architecture studio.
Read on for a transcript of the interview below:
“I am proud of the fact that I have been able and have been fortunate to work with so many wonderful colleagues. Currently, I have changed the name of the company to Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners because I am 80 years old, you can see an end coming.
“But I would like to think that my ethic – going back to the gallery of the Royal Academy and its spirit – may continue. We have a constitution where partners give up ownership. We only do certain types of work and that has led to a certain team spirit.”
“So I’m proud of all of those things and I’m proud of the fact that I was able to live in a time when I was able to make the most of my abilities.
It’s so exciting, it’s so dynamic – something that was impossible before
“On the one hand, Britain now has very good architects, very good modern architects. And you could say there is no better nation than that.
“The Pritzker Prize, which is kind of talked about as the Nobel Prize for Architecture, there are probably more architects who have been awarded Pritzkers per population in England than anywhere else. Maybe Japan is the contender. So engineering is there.”
“The political interest hasn’t been much before, and every now and then you get a bit of a flare. And I definitely tried to work on that.”
“I work in the House of Lords and usually get involved when there are things about the built environment. And it’s better in a way. I mean, if you go to the City of London that’s pretty good.
“I was walking out that day from the Design Museum across from Tower Bridge and I thought I was in New York with all these towers and lights.
“Now I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but it’s very exciting, it’s very dynamic – something that was impossible before.
“In my generation, every architect who left school went on to work in the school department, hospital department, housing department, local county council, educational institutions etc. I don’t think one can say it is better or worse.
“Really, I will say, 90 percent of the students I knew who left with me, went to work, that would be normal. In other words, the idea was that you would build for the future.
We just had a terrible war and there was a very strong feeling, not by one party, by the way, perhaps more than one party, about the welfare state. The state can be enriched by the way we have played our capabilities and responsibilities.
It’s so much more than the age of greed
“This is gone and the era of greed is so much more than that, especially with regards to the time we grappled with the economic crisis in the past years. It has a lot to do with eating dogs and accepting that it doesn’t matter what you earn, you don’t have a duty to society.
“And I think it’s reflected in some of the things we do, I often refer to Finland, where teachers get the same money as surgeons. So, of course, teachers are recognized for their important role.
“we [the British] not do. This applies to everything, and has nothing to do with architecture. This is about society.
“But it’s a very exciting time and we are now looking at an international world that we wouldn’t have done 50 years ago.
“When I started practicing architecture, Paris was very international, in the sense that it crosses the canal. Now, you know, we are fortunate to be able to take advantage of a much wider network of communication, and therefore change and adapt to that network.
“I wouldn’t say things are uglier, but we have to be very careful about protecting the public domain.”