Clan Rising

Rogers Family Champion

Sir Richard Rogers(1933–2021)

Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside, CH

The Florence-born Anglo-Italian architect who designed the Pompidou Centre with Renzo Piano, the Lloyd's of London building and the Millennium Dome, won the Pritzker Prize, and built the public-and-civic buildings of late-twentieth-century European cities.

Richard George Rogers was born in Florence on 23 July 1933, only child of an Anglo-Italian doctor and a Trieste-born potter, raised bilingual in Italian and English. The family moved to England in 1939; he was schooled at St John's, Pinner, and at Epsom College in Surrey.

After national service with the Army Intelligence Corps at Trieste he studied at the Architectural Association in London from 1954 and took the Master's at the Yale School of Architecture in 1962 on a Fulbright Scholarship. At Yale he met Norman Foster, and on their return to London in 1963 the two of them, with Su Brumwell and Wendy Cheesman, formed the four-person partnership Team 4, which produced the Reliance Controls factory at Swindon before the partners went their separate ways in 1967.

The Pompidou Centre, won jointly with Renzo Piano against six hundred and eighty entries in the open international competition of 1971, was the foundational commission of his career: the inside-out building with the services on the outside and an open plan within, the structural-steel-and-coloured-pipe aesthetic that became the signature of the high-tech movement. Built at Beaubourg between 1972 and 1977, it is one of the foundational buildings of late-twentieth-century European architecture.

The major buildings of the next four decades carried the same vocabulary across an unbroken civic-and-commercial record: Lloyd's of London (1986), the Channel 4 headquarters, the Millennium Dome at Greenwich (1999), Heathrow Terminal 5, Madrid Barajas Terminal 4, the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg, the Bordeaux Law Courts, and the Senedd at Cardiff Bay. He was knighted in 1991, made a life peer as Baron Rogers of Riverside in 1996, and awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2007.

He served as Chief Adviser on Architecture and Urbanism to the Mayor of London from 2001, and continued working at Rogers Stirk Harbour through the partnership with Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour. He died in Chelsea on 18 December 2021, eighty-eight years old. The Rogers name, the Norman patronymic of Roger, he carried in its Florence-born Anglo-Italian variant into the late-twentieth-century European architectural canon alongside his AA-and-Yale partner Norman Foster.

Achievements

  • ·Architectural Association diploma, 1959; Yale M.Arch., 1962
  • ·Co-founded Team 4 with Norman Foster, Su Brumwell and Wendy Cheesman, 1963 to 1967
  • ·Won the Centre Pompidou competition with Renzo Piano, December 1971
  • ·Pompidou Centre opened in Paris, 31 January 1977
  • ·Lloyd's of London completed, 1986
  • ·Millennium Dome at Greenwich opened, 31 December 1999
  • ·Knight Bachelor, 1991; Baron Rogers of Riverside, 1996; Companion of Honour, 2008
  • ·Pritzker Architecture Prize, 2007

Step Into History

Walk the streets and halls Sir Richard Rogers knew — a photoreal walk through time, on foot.

Step Into History · New

Walk London in 1818Enter →

St Paul's, Covent Garden and the gaslit West End — Regency London, soot-hazed and horse-drawn.

Where this story lives

Frequently asked

What is Sir Richard Rogers famous for?

The Florence-born Anglo-Italian architect who designed the Pompidou Centre with Renzo Piano, the Lloyd's of London building and the Millennium Dome, won the Pritzker Prize, and built the public-and-civic buildings of late-twentieth-century European cities. Richard George Rogers was born in Florence on 23 July 1933, only child of an Anglo-Italian doctor and a Trieste-born potter, raised bilingual in Italian and English.

When was Sir Richard Rogers born?

Sir Richard Rogers was born in 1933 in Florence, Italy. The full biographical record sits on the dedicated page on Clan Rising, set alongside the wider history of the Rogers family.

When did Sir Richard Rogers die?

Sir Richard Rogers died in 2021. That gave a lifespan of about 88 years.

How long did Sir Richard Rogers live?

Sir Richard Rogers lived for around 88 years, from 1933 to 2021. The page records the substantive years in full, with the achievements and the geography that frame the life.

Where was Sir Richard Rogers born?

Sir Richard Rogers was born in Florence, Italy. The atlas links the birthplace to its tile page so the surrounding geography and other families of the area can be explored from the same record.

Where did Sir Richard Rogers live and work?

Sir Richard Rogers's life and work were concentrated in London. Each location has its own page on the atlas with the broader historical context for the area.

What is Sir Richard Rogers's connection to the Rogers family?

Sir Richard Rogers is recorded on Clan Rising as a Rogers Family Champion, a figure whose life is inseparable from the surname. The Rogers family page sets the wider context for the name and links through to every other notable bearer.

What did Sir Richard Rogers achieve?

Headline achievements recorded for Sir Richard Rogers include Architectural Association diploma, 1959; Yale M.Arch., 1962, Co-founded Team 4 with Norman Foster, Su Brumwell and Wendy Cheesman, 1963 to 1967, Won the Centre Pompidou competition with Renzo Piano, December 1971 and Pompidou Centre opened in Paris, 31 January 1977. The full list and the surrounding biographical record sit on the dedicated champion page.

Was Sir Richard Rogers a Rogers?

Yes. Sir Richard Rogers is filed on Clan Rising under the Rogers family. The naming convention follows the surname a diaspora reader would search for today; titles, particles and pen names sort under that same canonical surname.