In Pictures: Richard Rogers, shaper of city skylines | Gallery News
British architect Richard Rogers designed a series of landmark buildings around the world, including London’s “Cheesegrater” and the famous multi-coloured, pipe-covered Pompidou arts centre in Paris.
Rogers died on Saturday night aged 88, according to Britain’s Press Association, which cited his spokesperson. One of his sons also confirmed his death to the New York Times but did not give the cause.
An Italian immigrant and winner of the prestigious Pritzker prize in 2007, Rogers was a leading member of the “high-tech” school of architecture that also included Norman Foster and Renzo Piano.
Together they pioneered a hyper-modern style that showcased machines and technology, overturning aesthetic principles to expose the functional elements of buildings.
Among his other notable buildings are the three-towered Lloyd’s of London headquarters – which also reflected his inside-out style – and the Millennium Dome, also in London.
He completed his architecture studies at Yale in the United States in 1962, where he met fellow Briton Norman Foster.
They returned to England in 1964 and with their wives founded the architecture firm, Team 4, which became known for its technology-inspired designs.
In 1968, Rogers met the Italian architect Renzo Piano with whom he shared an interest in developing a flexible and anti-monumental architecture. The same year, they won a competition to design a new art gallery in Paris, which became the Pompidou Centre.
Today a landmark of the city, its facade is covered by thick pipes painted in bold colours, with stairways and escalators on the outside of the building.
It quickly attracted a range of nicknames, not all of them complimentary: “The Gasworks”, “The Pompidolium”, “Notre-Dame of the Pipes”.
Rogers completed some 400 commissions in a career punctuated by big-statement, skyline-defining buildings characterised by light structures, prefabricated materials and use of cutting-edge technology.
His designs include the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, Potsdamer Platz offices in Berlin, an airport terminal in Madrid and 3 World Trade Center in New York.
