March 2009
British architect Richard Rogers has established himself and his practice at the forefront of today’s architectural culture through such high-profile projects as the Pompidou Centre, the headquarters for Lloyd’s of London, the Millennium Dome, the National Assembly for Wales and Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport.
’Richard Rogers + Architects – From the House to the City’ at the Caixaforum in Barcelona presents a detailed survey of Rogers’ work. This spans the early years with Norman and Wendy Foster and Su Rogers at Team 4 in the 1960s and designing the Pompidou Centre with Renzo Piano in the 1970s, to the establishment of Richard Rogers Partnership–now Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners–and the numerous projects designed by the practice and built throughout the world over the past four decades.
Influenced by the ‘English School’ of the 1970s in his buildings, and by his Italian background in his approach to cities, Rogers’ architectural and urban philosophy is based on the belief in a civil society, and the relationship between the built environment and social inclusion. The exhibition illustrates this, and also a concern for environmentally sustainable development that has influenced Rogers’ work since the beginning of his career.
The projects are arranged in colour-coded sections, with each ‘urban block’ evoking an architectural theme which examines a range of projects through new and archive models, photographs, drawings and films. In each thematic area – Transparent, Legible, Green, Lightweight, Public, Urban and Systems – projects that are particularly representative of that theme are explored. Rogers’ early career and influences are examined in an ‘Early Work’ section, and current projects by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners are featured in a ‘Work in Progress’ section.
Richard Rogers is one of the foremost living architects; he is the winner of the 2007 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the recipient of the prestigious RIBA Gold medal in 1985 and winner of the 1999 Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Medal. He is also winner of the 2000 Praemium Imperiale Prize for Architecture and the 2006 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement as well as the 2007 Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal. Richard Rogers was awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 1986, knighted in 1991 and made a life peer in 1996.
In 1995 he was the first architect ever invited to give the BBC Reith Lectures–a series entitled ‘Cities for a Small Planet’–and in 1998 was appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister to chair the UK Government’s Urban Task Force. He is Chief Advisor on Architecture and Urbanism to the Mayor of London, and was recently appointed Chair of the Greater London Authority’s Design for London Advisory Group, and also served as Adviser to the Mayor of Barcelona’s Urban Strategies Council. Richard Rogers has also served as Chairman of the Tate Gallery and Deputy Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. He is currently a Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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