Richard Rogers
Architecture is a living thing. If I want to leave something to the future, it has to be able to change - but retain something of the ethos that we built up over 50 years.Collection: Architecture
Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.Collection: Architecture
Architecture is about public space held by buildings.Collection: Space
A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.Collection: Design
The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.Collection: Environmental
If you had a carbon tax, you'd have less cars and more bicycles, more people getting around on foot and by public transport.Collection: Car
Architecture is always political.Collection: Architecture
My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we - architects - can effect the quality of life of the people.Collection: Architecture
Architecture is measured against the past; you build in the future, and you try to imagine the future.Collection: Future
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges facing our cities or to the housing crisis, but the two issues need to be considered together. From an urban design and planning point of view, the well-connected open city is a powerful paradigm and an engine for integration and inclusivity.Collection: Design
Of course I know very little about architecture, and the older I get the less I know.Collection: Architecture
Architects design buildings; that's what we do, so we have to go with the flow; and, even though I'm still an old Leftie, global capitalism does have its good side. It's broken down barriers - the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union - it's raised a lot of people up economically, and for architects, it has meant that we can work around the world.Collection: Design
My architecture tends to be legible, light and flexible. You can read it. You look at a building, and you can see how it is constructed. I put the structure outside.Collection: Architecture
Architecture is a slow business, and city planning even slower.Collection: Architecture
I love cities, I spend most of my life talking about cities. And the design of cities does have an effect on your life. You're lucky if you can see trees out of your window and you have a square nearby, or a bar, a cornershop, a surgery. Then you're living well.Collection: Design
I believe very strongly, and have fought since many years ago - at least over 30 years ago - to get architecture not just within schools, but architecture talked about under history, geography, science, technology, art.Collection: Architecture
Most buildings, whether they're Gothic cathedrals or Romanesque ones, were high tech for their time.
Architects are not clients. We can't build without something to built.
You have to modernise; you have to change - you can't just be traditional for the fun of being traditional.
I believe very much in a dialogue between buildings - I believe it's always been there. I think buildings have different identities and live very well next to each other. We always have the shock of the new, and that's fine. The renaissance style is totally different from the medieval, and they have a dialogue across time.
I don't understand why everyone has to wear black, grey and white.
Cities are about juxtaposition.
Suburban sprawl leads to social atomisation and fragmentation and is environmentally disastrous, as carbon-intensive car journeys displace local shops and replace public transport.
I love my job. What would I retire to?
I don't believe in the ownership of work.
Everyone has the right to walk from one end of the city to the other in secure and beautiful spaces. Everybody has the right to go by public transport. Everybody has the right to an unhampered view down their street, not full of railings, signs and rubbish.
Dyslexia, though, made me realise that people who say 'but you can't do that' aren't actually very important. I don't take 'no' too seriously.
I think greed is a critical problem - the gap between the poor and the rich. The gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent.
If I remember rightly Holland for instance has something like 45, and it's a much smaller country. In comparison we have very few and they are very badly financed.
I think we did a pretty good role, linking, being a sounding board really and a driving force, especially from the bottom up. I think that part of this is bottom up as well as top down.
I think you could make a completely Virtual Centre, though I have a general feeling, and maybe because I am getting very old, that you still need face to face.
It is quite interesting that whilst there are tremendous theories, in the 1960s when IT was born, everybody was supposedly going to their cottage in the countryside to work in a virtual way.
If you live in a squalid environment, then of course you are going to want to get out of it, you are probably going to want to get into the country, because that's what it does.
So I think that, yes, anything that makes it more palatable and easier to understand, such as a Virtual Centre, has to be seen as a primary activity within the educational and information global state.
You know, the environment is fragmenting, and the environment is, in many places, absolutely hideous!
I'm just saying that there are high quality materials, and when we change them then there should be a way of changing them so that you can celebrate that change - rather than just 'mix it up'.
In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like.
My mother was very family-oriented. And I do love being with my children.
There is a Jewish tradition of family, too, but then not all Italian or Jewish families are close.
The gap between the rich and poor is widening fast.
Cities are about juxtaposition. In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like. In Bordeaux, we built law courts right next door to what is effectively a listed historic building, and that makes it exciting.
The one advantage of being dyslexic is that you are never tempted to look back and idealise your childhood.
I like the idea of trying to influence society by taking a brief, then maybe subtly changing it or looking at it in a new way to see what interesting things can emerge.
Society has to get a grip and put a tax on carbon. Of course, there is much that flows from that, and it is a complex situation. The small details of something such as climate change are political and social, and they are a lot about fairness and how we rebalance towards a fairer society.
Clearly, private developers can have different aims, and architects can only play a certain role. You can have some pretty big battles on public commissions, too. The key is to have a good client.
Watching TV on your own is not very inspiring. But meeting people is where you get new ideas and get things done.
One of the things you see in New York is that offices keep their lights on at night. They're proud of their building. Great. But they must find another way to be proud without draining energy.
I had lots of trouble in school as a child, and I lost confidence. Teachers thought I was stupid. I learned to read very late, when I was 11. Dyslexia wasn't recognized then, and the assumption was you were incapable of thinking.
I am much more passionate about cities than I am about nations. The competition between cities is more civilised than between nations. There is an understanding there.
I cycle, which is a healthy thing for an 80-year-old to do. I rarely go further than five miles, but in those five miles I can get to 80 percent of the places I want to go.