This week Sir. Richard Rogers passed away at the admirable age of 88.
His death brings a melancholy but also a sense of deep gratitude that a person like this existed, thrived, and had such an impact. Rogers has helped me with my life from afar, and from near, at various stages of my life.
His obituaries are wide ranging, and you will read about his many accomplishments in the links listed below.
But this blog is more personal. I studied Rogers at university and when I was 31, I had the privilege of working at RSHP, his architecture practice.
Studying architecture at university I was lost. My father had cancer from second year right through to sixth and I found it very had to focus and to grasp the point of what I was to be learning.
In my third year, my team and I came third place in the vertical competition and we won books. One of the books that I won was “Cities for a Small Planet” by Sir, Richard Rogers and Philip Gumuchdjian. To say this was a bolt of lightening that pulled me back to earth is an understatement. His passion for architecture and urban design leapt off the pages. In this small book I had found an architect whose passion was so immense, his arguments so well explained, and in such a democratic manner, that it restored my faith that what I was studying had importance. I began to share his enthusiasm. My focus re-engaged.
I remembered the Pompidou Centre in Paris. I had visited there when I was 16. I remembered the performers I saw in the square, the small independent shops surrounding the square, that I bought a leather jacket. For a place to create such vivid memories is an huge achievement. Later Rogers said that the urban realm between buildings is hugely important. "Public space is what in many ways makes cities more livable," he said to Ken Livingstone. "You've got to get the vitality used, the pavement used." Before I knew I would study architecture, Rogers had been making an impact upon me. Perhaps the Pompidou, and the space around it, did affect my decision to become an architect.
In uni we went on to study Lloyd’s of London, and saw the news on TV about the Millennium Dome being built. Both buildings so joyful in appearance.
In 2011, having my return from living in the Far East, I was thrilled to be given a job at RSHP, after a two interview process. I had put great effort into making mini-portfolios and hand delivered them to a few practices that I really wanted to work at.
On my first day, it was explained to me that I would be given discounted food tokens for the canteen, that the directors salaries were a capped percentage of the lowest salary, and that permanent employees part owned the company, and here was my ticket to the office Christmas Party in Washington the following week.
I felt like I had landed in employment heaven.
Other things I realised about working at RSHP. I became really healthy. The food in the canteen was supplied by the same supplier as Riverside Cafe, the Michelian Star restaurant. One lunchtime we were served partridge.
The office was extremely well organised. Out of about 300 employees, 50 were dedicated to drafting and cad systems standards. We were not allowed to make our own cad files, there was a person whose job that was. They ensured the file names were correct and orderly. This allowed the rest of us to focus on the architecture. We also spent the first week in training, so that we knew how to draw in the RSHP format.
This is a lesson I learned again later in life, when I completed my final exams at the Architectural School, where Rogers also attended. I did not study architecture there, but I did study my professional exams there. These exams are about how to run an architecture design practice. The first thing that was said to us as students at AA was to always ensure you are being paid on time and fully, because if your head is distracted with accountancy worries, your creative brain cannot flourish.
And it seems Rogers learned this also. He surrounded himself with, in his words, “people who are more talented than himself” and people who are experts in each of the facets of the industry. Rogers had partners at RSHP who were with him from the beginning. They were experts in finance, contracts, building standards, engineering, HR. And they were all loyal to him. This impacted me greatly. The dissolution of his ego, to surround himself with people more talented, intelligent, better than himself, has allowed the practice to flourish year after year.
When I began at RSHP Rogers was 78, and I naively thought he would be a figure-head only. Not present. Not running jobs. But boy was I wrong! It happened on more than one occasion that a team would be “stuck” on a design query and Richard would solve it with a few sentences and swish of his pen.
On our floor we had jobs that were as diverse as high-rise residential in China, (our team), a sport stadium, an office development. Every few weeks Richard would tour the teams and help with any issues. We were stuck between a client need and a building regulation. What the client’s wanted could not be build due to our interpretation of the Chinese building regulations. Richard came along, said what about this and that and why don’t you do it like this? Our project architect, a talented architect himself who had won “Best Building in the World” award prior to joining RSHP, looked at the sketch, thought about it, and said “Yes, that’s it. That will work.” For all of Richard’s proclamations that his team were all smarter than he was, he was still the unreserved design genius in any room he entered.
He was also the most cheerful, the most active, skiing most years, cycling to work every day through the London traffic. He was a genuine luminaire. All of us wanted to be more like him.
His generosity of sprit is evidence in his renaming of his company from The Richard Rogers Partnership to Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to represent the true influence of the talented architects who lead teams there.
This was a person who gave, gave, gave all of his life and efforts to the betterment of those close around him and far away from him. City Mayors thank him for his designs, saying that the buildings they build benefited the cities financially and atmospherically too.
Arups Engineers were constant visitors to the offices at Riverside. They often gave lectures and always seemed delighted to be part of the team, working on great buildings that pushed the boundaries, especially in their work on developing earthquake proof towers in Central American cites.
I havnt’t even touched his work on sustainability and climate change.
I think of his Generosity of Spirit often. Working at RSHP had a really positive impact on my life. We all need to find our passion and work every day on it in a manner that improves the world. Rogers has said that he wanted to leave the world in better condition than when he found it, and he certainly has.
RIP
here, here and here.
