Richard Rogers: Advocate of urban life

On 18 December 2021, British architect Richard Rogers passed away at the age of 88.

One of the leading figures in "high-tech" architecture, Rogers is known for his 1977 collaboration with Renzo Piano at the Centre Pompidou, which has also made him controversial. Although today the Centre Pompidou is considered one of the most famous buildings in Paris, the design scheme was "embattled" when it came out – Le Figaro sneered: "Now Paris has its own monsters, like the Loch Ness Monster." Rogers said: "The left criticizes us for colluding with the government to engage in cultural centrism, and the right accuses us of desecrated the Paris skyline." One rainy day before the opening of the Centre Pompidou, an old woman came under Rogers' umbrella, learned that it was his design, and knocked him on the head with the umbrella.

The controversy stems from the bold and radical appearance of the proposal submitted by Rogers and Piano. The "beams, columns, space trusses, pipelines, HVAC lighting, escalators" that were originally hidden in traditional buildings have all been exposed. Rogers and Piano painted air conditioning equipment blue, drainage pipes green, electrical facilities and plumbing yellow, and red transparent glass elevator pipes that slanted through an entire façade. The pipes are all moved outside to maximize interior space. The interior is empty except for the necessary fire curtains, and the only places with walls are the bathroom and office, and they are all movable.

"The Centre Pompidou should not be a frozen classical temple, but an adaptable place that can evolve," Rogers said. He wanted it to be "friendly robots, a non-deterministic open system, a place of public living" that allows people to modify, adjust, and interact with space. He values the variability and freedom of architecture, "Technology and social change are accelerating, and it is difficult or even impossible to predict how we will live and work in the coming decades." If our buildings are sustainable, they must be able to cope with future changes in their functionality and configuration. ”

"We wanted to challenge the notion that culture had to be made of marble." Time has proven that the ideas of Rogers and Piano have come true, and in the history of architecture, the Centre Pompidou is considered an important node, and its frank and futuristic design style has broken the elitist aura of traditional museums.

In 1995, Rogers participated in the BBC lecture series Cities on an Asteroid. "Cities are the most unstable places for life, but also the places where we have the most opportunities to improve, intervene and change," he said. "Rogers spent his life working to make cities places of civilization, not just collections of buildings. He once quoted Louis Kahn as a "poetic philosopher of architecture", "The city is a place of possibility, and when a little boy walks by, the city may show him something and tell him what he wants to do in this life." But he's also frustrated that today that possibility seems to be fading.

Rogers has always believed that the influence of architecture goes far beyond architecture itself, writing in his memoir, Architecture and Dreams, "Architecture transforms the ordinary and the ordinary by giving order, scale, and rhythm to space." Piano describes architecture as the most dangerous art for the public and society: we can turn off the television or close a book, but we can't ignore our built environment. ”

In 2007, Rogers received the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In his speech, the judges praised him as a "champion of urban life," which is probably the best summary of him, "In a long and innovative career, Rogers showed us the most enduring role of an architect – a good citizen of the world." ”