Lord Richard Rogers is the 2007 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. He is a founding partner of Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners, with offices in London, Shanghai and Sydney. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he and his partners have designed many buildings including Centre Pompidou, Lloyd’s of London, the Bordeaux Law Courts, the Welsh Assembly, the Millennium Dome, the Leadenhall Building, and new terminals at Madrid Barajas and London Heathrow airports.
The practice has a wealth of experience in urban master-planning with major schemes in London, Lisbon, Berlin, New York and Shanghai. It is participating in the Greater Paris project, which examines the future of the city as a more integrated metropolitan region.
Lord Rogers was in Singapore in July as a distinguished juror of the President’s Design Award 2015, in the category of Architecture and Urban Design. DesignSingapore speaks with him in an exclusive interview.
My personal style signifiers are bright-coloured clothing and a transparent Bulova watch.
Three places in London that never go out of style are The River Café restaurant; Royal Chelsea Hospital by Christopher Wren; and the Tate Modern.
If I wasn’t an architect, I’d be a landscape architect.
I’d like to design a public space.
My current obsession is travelling.
A word I use frequently: Citizenship.
As host to a perfect dinner, my imaginary guests for the table of five are: Classical Greek philosopher Socrates; Italian Renaissance architect/engineer Filippo Brunelleschi; French composer/musician Pierre Boulez; American politician/activist and former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt; and Irish novelist/poet James Joyce.
When I last looked into the mirror, I thought: “Until I look in the mirror, I feel 18.”
What I know for sure now that I didn’t at 18: The importance of team work.
