Top 33 Richard Rogers Quotes

The gap between the rich and poor is widening fast.

I don’t understand why everyone has to wear black, grey and white.

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.

My mother was very family-oriented. And I do love being with my children.

I don’t believe in the ownership of work.

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.

When I started out, nearly every architect I knew was working in public practice; that’s where the radical thinking was done. But, there’s always a danger of looking back as our fathers did and saying, ‘Things were better then.’

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.

The Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea provide plenty of opportunities to walk, think and relax.

Family is everything, although I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with some of the most amazing minds over the years, including Renzo Piano, John Young, Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour.

Education in British schools isn’t good enough. It’s not remotely imaginative enough. It lets down too many children, excluding them from society, and, as I’ve often said, people who are excluded from society tend to express themselves in ways not acceptable to society.

There is a Jewish tradition of family, too, but then not all Italian or Jewish families are close.

Suburban sprawl leads to social atomisation and fragmentation and is environmentally disastrous, as carbon-intensive car journeys displace local shops and replace public transport.

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.

Architecture is measured against the past; you build in the future, and you try to imagine the future.

You know, the environment is fragmenting, and the environment is, in many places, absolutely hideous!

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.

If you had a carbon tax, you’d have less cars and more bicycles, more people getting around on foot and by public transport.

The one advantage of being dyslexic is that you are never tempted to look back and idealise your childhood.

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.

‘Be passionate about your work and your life’ was instilled in me by my mother Dada, who was a potter. She also introduced me to the arts and encouraged me to embrace the new.

Watching TV on your own is not very inspiring. But meeting people is where you get new ideas and get things done.

Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.

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 remember my mother taking me to see the Picasso show in the 1940s, and I was impressed by the life and vibrancy of it all. It was a bit too avant-garde for most Londoners at the time, but since then, the city has become a centre for modern culture.

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.

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.

The Athenians had an oath for someone who was about to become a citizen. They had to swear that ‘I shall leave the city not less but more beautiful than I found it.’

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 love my job. What would I retire to?

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 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.

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’.