Richard Rogers Quotes

Architecture is about public space held by buildings.

You have to modernise; you have to change – you can’t just be traditional for the fun of being traditional.

Clearly, private developers can have different aims, and architects can only play a certain role. You can have some pretty big battles on public commissions, too. The key is to have a good client.

I am much more passionate about cities than I am about nations. The competition between cities is more civilised than between nations. There is an understanding there.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges facing our cities or to the housing crisis, but the two issues need to be considered together. From an urban design and planning point of view, the well-connected open city is a powerful paradigm and an engine for integration and inclusivity.

You know, the environment is fragmenting, and the environment is, in many places, absolutely hideous!

So I think that, yes, anything that makes it more palatable and easier to understand, such as a Virtual Centre, has to be seen as a primary activity within the educational and information global state.

If you had a carbon tax, you’d have less cars and more bicycles, more people getting around on foot and by public transport.

I remember my mother taking me to see the Picasso show in the 1940s, and I was impressed by the life and vibrancy of it all. It was a bit too avant-garde for most Londoners at the time, but since then, the city has become a centre for modern culture.

Suburban sprawl leads to social atomisation and fragmentation and is environmentally disastrous, as carbon-intensive car journeys displace local shops and replace public transport.

I think we did a pretty good role, linking, being a sounding board really and a driving force, especially from the bottom up. I think that part of this is bottom up as well as top down.

My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we – architects – can effect the quality of life of the people.

I love my job. What would I retire to?

My architecture tends to be legible, light and flexible. You can read it. You look at a building, and you can see how it is constructed. I put the structure outside.

I think you could make a completely Virtual Centre, though I have a general feeling, and maybe because I am getting very old, that you still need face to face.

It is quite interesting that whilst there are tremendous theories, in the 1960s when IT was born, everybody was supposedly going to their cottage in the countryside to work in a virtual way.

I cycle, which is a healthy thing for an 80-year-old to do. I rarely go further than five miles, but in those five miles I can get to 80 percent of the places I want to go.

I love cities, I spend most of my life talking about cities. And the design of cities does have an effect on your life. You’re lucky if you can see trees out of your window and you have a square nearby, or a bar, a cornershop, a surgery. Then you’re living well.

Architecture is measured against the past; you build in the future, and you try to imagine the future.

‘Be passionate about your work and your life’ was instilled in me by my mother Dada, who was a potter. She also introduced me to the arts and encouraged me to embrace the new.

If I remember rightly Holland for instance has something like 45, and it’s a much smaller country. In comparison we have very few and they are very badly financed.

The gap between the rich and poor is widening fast.

The Athenians had an oath for someone who was about to become a citizen. They had to swear that ‘I shall leave the city not less but more beautiful than I found it.’

Family is everything, although I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with some of the most amazing minds over the years, including Renzo Piano, John Young, Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour.

One of the things you see in New York is that offices keep their lights on at night. They’re proud of their building. Great. But they must find another way to be proud without draining energy.