The Caixa Forum in Madrid is now home of a superb Richard Rogers exhibition, the infamous architect, whose lightweight, transparent and futuristic designs changed the world of architecture. The exhibition neatly goes through Rogers’ main projects from his early start with the Rogers’ family house in the early 1970’s to his latest projects such as Heathrow’s Terminal Five and the Millennium Dome.
The exhibit is superbly presented with intricately modelled maquettes of his major buildings such as Lloyds Bank in London, the Wales National Assembly and the Pompidou Centre which he designed with Renzo Piano. All of Rogers’s designs are singular in that they combine well established systems, a physical realisation of society’s values, environmentally responsible designs made with lightweight materials only and transparent structures which reveal inner activity. Rogers also requires that all his buildings be legible in terms of order, scale and expression of construction. It may seem like quite a handful but when you read the manifesto created by Rogers for his company, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, it nears perfection.
The desire for compact cities and small towns operated by energy efficient systems and designed with innovative techniques is at the core of this manifesto. However, where Rogers differs from other architects who have the environment as a main concern is that he sees style as being necessary for all these conditions to be fulfilled. If something isn’t nice to look at, people won’t be attracted to it. If there are two women sporting an eco-friendly t-shirt, you’ll be most likely to buy it off Claudia Schiffer than smelly Aunt Gertrude, it’s not rocket science. The thoughts that cities may be changed for economic and environmental purposes yet with sexy aesthetics in mind (forgive me if I find his architecture sexy); all for the common good and well being of society fills me with a sense of excitement.
The exhibition stresses that Rogers is particularly determined to create public spaces that encompass the diversity and complexity of the contemporary world. In all his designs he never takes for granted that people will live in and around them, and hence tries to make them as user-friendly as possible both in construction and once constructed. He creates buildings that revolve around a seductive interplay of light and shadow with simple designs and minimalist details which make them thus simple to understand and use. Rogers sees public spaces as being the physical realisation of society’s values shaped by the communities that use them. He thus thinks that through good design in social spaces, we can achieve social inclusion enhanced by environmental responsibility and thus create diversity. Combined with an urban concern and physical attractiveness is an earnest endeavour for well being in the human quotidian.
If every city from now on was to be built with these concerns in mind with buildings that abided to these principles, we might be better off as human beings. It seems his constructions generate respect and tolerance due to their implicit focus on clarity and honesty. There is no pretense in the work, no arrogance, it’s a beautiful buiding made for the people both within it and ouside of it. In fact, it helps bring them together, an important fact for democratic harmony in our capitalist society to develop. It is this human aspect that captures my interest in both his past designs and his upcoming projects.
The last part of the exhibition centres on Roger’s work in progress. The new luxury complex of penthouses situated in 1 Hyde Park in London is a prime example of the magic of his architecture. It will operate solely with geothermal heating and is fitted with special latest technology mechanisms around the complex designed to reduce carbon emissions. Meanwhile, as promised by Rogers, the entire design of the building emanates luxury and the cutting edge architecture for which he is renowned for. Similarly, the new entertainment complex in Barcelona, Los Arenas, also exhibits characteristics of style and eco-friendly design such as solar radiation with happiness of the people as its main focus. It seems that Rogers succeeds in combining hyper edgy design with green sustainability creating a better living space for society and thus enhancing future living and thinking, something our world right now can only benefit from.
Richard Rogers is the 2007 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, the recipient of the RIBA Gold Medal in 1985 and winner of the 1999 Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Medal. He is also winner of the 2000 Praemium Imperiale Prize for Architecture, the 2006 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (La Biennale di Venezia) and the 2007 Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal. Richard Rogers was awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 1986, knighted in 1991 and made a life peer in 1996. Most recently, in 2008 he was made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour. The exhibition Richard Rogers +Architects-From the House to the City is now touring Europe and is now at the CaixaForum in Madrid until the 18th October 2009.
Pompidou Centre- 1976
Wales National Assembly- 2005
Lloyds Bank-1986. 