Richard Rogers: London loses a titan

The legendary architect was a true visionary whose buildings delight and deliver on his ideals, says Rohan Silva

- Rohan Silva

RICHARD ROGERS — the greatest British architect since Sir Christopher Wren — didn’t always have it easy. He loved to tell the story of an elderly Parisian lady he bumped into outside the Pompidou Centre. She asked him: “Excuse me, do you happen to know who designed this building?” Richard puffed out his chest and proudly told her that she was in fact speaking to the architect himself. The lady’s response? She hit him with her umbrella — it turned out she hated the way the building looked.

That’s the price to pay for being a radical. And Richard did have a radical vision: he truly believed that our cities could be more human, more equitable and more sustainable. But what marked him out as one of the all-time greats is that he delivered on that ambition, time and again.

His designs — like the magnificent Madrid airport, the Lloyd’s of London building, and Millennium Dome (now the O2) — encouraged people to congregate, and feel that little bit happier as they went about their day.

He followed that logic wherever it took him. For example, it often meant putting lifts and corridors on the exterior of buildings, which created more space inside for people to mingle and interact.

His master plans to reinvent large chunks of the city, like his successful scheme to pedestrianize Trafalgar Square, were all about maximizing human interactions and helping people come together.