Pompidou Centre, Paris; Lloyd’s building, City of London; Millennium Dome, Greenwich peninsula. The life's work of multiple award winning architect Richard Rogers is a showcase of avant garde made real, hi-tech buildings. Designed for the good of those lucky enough to inhabit them, and for the rest of us to gawp at open-mouthed. Now the late architect’s son has curated a show called 'Richard Rogers: Talking Buildings' at London’s Sir John Soane Museum. We’d say it’s unmissable for anyone even remotely interested in contemporary architecture.
You might say that the Richard Rogers trademark, first seen on the Pompidou Centre in Paris, designed with Renzo Piano, was the inside out building. What are usually hidden utilities - such as plumbing, air conditioning, electrical piping, safety systems - were placed on the outside, celebrated in a variety of primary colours. Handily, this frees up internal space, for exhibitions in Paris, and for trading floors at the still jaw-dropping Lloyd’s building. Both are featured in this exhibition.
Richard Rogers: Talking Buildings
Eight projects in all are represented by drawings, videos and scale models. Bright colours abound, a tribute to the architect’s signature use of primary colours as frames and accents in his distinctive architecture. Ab Rogers’s show describes his late father as “a man who never stopped championing his social, environmental, ethical and political passions; an activist and campaigner for whom buildings were the physical expression of his beliefs, but not his whole legacy”.
There’s the familiar of course. It’s easy to forget now that the structure known as the 02 Arena in London started life as the Millennium Dome, housing an oft-derided exhibition to herald in the year 2000. What wasn’t derided was the structure itself, a vast tent-like structure on decontaminated land on the Greenwich peninsula, one of the largest buildings in the world by volume when opened. Unexpected, playful - could it be a circus tent? - and rigorously engineered, it was and is classic Richard Rogers territory.
Boundary-pushing concepts
As is the democracy of one of his first - and still unbuilt - buildings, the Zip-Up House, his first design from 1967 and conceived to be extended, changed and even dismantled and moved by its owner. Shown at the 1968 Ideal Home exhibition, the Zip-Up House was energy efficient and environmentally friendly well before these were fashionable tropes. Richard Rogers was always head of his time.
Comparisons are made between Rogers and Sir John Soane, who designed the three buildings in which his museum and this exhibition is housed. Both took chances and made an impact on London - even if Soane’s grand plans for the capital weren’t realised.
Best of all is the opportunity to take a tour of buildings big and small by Richard Rogers on a walking tour of London afterwards. From the 02 Arena, through the Lloyds Building in the City to smaller gems including a neat office building in Soho and apartment blocks near Tate Modern, his signature style is everywhere. We’re fans, obviously.
