Jonathan Glancey
Thursday March 29, 2007
The Guardian
Lord Rogers has been awarded the 2007 Pritzker architecture prize, it was announced in Los Angeles last night. Created as a stand-in Nobel prize for architecture by the wealthy Pritzker family, the prize, along with the British royal gold medal, is the most prestigious of its kind.
The prize comes with a glowing citation, a cheque for $100,000 and a bronze medal - to be hung around Richard Rogers's neck this June in a ceremony in London at the Banqueting Hall, Whitehall.
Lord Rogers, whose designs include the Pompidou Centre in Paris, Lloyd's of London, the Welsh assembly building, the Millennium Dome, and Terminal 5 at Heathrow, is the fourth British architect to win the Pritzker; the others were the late James Stirling (1981), Norman Foster (1999) and Zaha Hadid (2004).
In announcing the award, which was launched in 1979, Thomas J Pritzker quoted from the international jury's citation. "Born in Florence, Italy, and trained as an architect in London, at the Architectural Association, and later in the US at Yale University, Rogers has an outlook as urbane and expansive as his upbringing ... Rogers is a champion of urban life and believes in the potential of the city to be a catalyst for social change."
The Pritzker prize jury chairman, Lord Palumbo, added: "Throughout his distinguished career of more than 40 years, Richard Rogers has consistently pursued the highest goals for architecture."
The architect's sources of inspiration have been both local and international. The influence of Joseph Paxton's legendary Crystal Palace of 1851 as well as North Sea oil rigs, together with a dash of Soviet constructivism, are all apparent in the striking Lloyd's of London building.
The Richard Rogers Partnership is to be renamed Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners next month in recognition of the contributions of younger architects in the team.
He turns buildings inside-out, and there is something upside-down in the fact that Richard Rogers is only now, at 73, to pick up his Pritzker prize. For that award, the Nobel of architecture, has already gone to the likes of Zaha Hadid, who though great in her own right, can also be seen as a Rogers protege.
He towers over modernist design just like his Lloyd's building towers over London. His reputation dates back to the 1970s, when his revolutionary Pompidou Centre ripped out the pipes, ducts and stairs hidden in the heart of most structures, and exposed them to the surrounding Paris streets. More recently, his slate, glass and timber Welsh Assembly has been establishing itself as a national monument much more readily than its controversial Scottish cousin.
As a dyslexic, Rogers struggled at school and his career since, though stellar, has also had setbacks. His support for the Millennium Dome dealt him one blow; another was landed by Prince Charles, who Rogers believes, cost him work by calling for a return to more traditional design.
Yet when fusty critics describe his daring as vandalism, they could not be more wide of the mark. For Rogers has shown an unmatched concern for the effect on the community of shared spaces, and he's tried hard to induce the government to care just as much. Sprawling uniformity is the real architectural threat and it is innovators like Rogers who can keep it in check. Overdue it may be. But today's award could not be more richly deserved.
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