Pritzker Prize Laureate Richard Rogers Passes Away at 88

Richard Rogers, the fourth British architect to be awarded the Pritzker Prize, has passed away at 88 on Saturday, December 18.

Born in Florence, Italy, in 1933, Rogers and his family moved to England four years later. After attending the Architectural Association in London, he studied at Yale University in the United States, where he developed an interest in the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. When returned to England, Rogers alongside Norman Foster, Susan Brumwell, and Wendy Cheeseman founded short-lived architecture firm Team 4.

In 1977 Rogers formed Richard Rogers Partnership (renamed as Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners in 2007) and became one of Britain’s greatest architects of the latest decades for world-renowned iconic, hi-tech architecture. Among his projects, it includes the Pompidou Centre designed in partnership with Renzo Piano in Paris, the Lloyd’s of London, the Millennium Dome, and the Madrid-Barajas Airport Terminal 4 alongside Estudio Lamela. Moreover, in 1998, he was appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister to chair the UK Government’s Urban Task Force. As quoted by the Pritzker Prize Foundation, Rogers once stated that cities of the future “will no longer be zoned as today in isolated one-activity ghettos; rather they will resemble the more richly layered cities of the past.”

Rogers won numerous honors, including the Pritzker Prize in 2007, the Praemium Imperiale in 2000, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Medal in 1999, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in 1989, and the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1985.

When Rogers was laureated for the 2007 Pritzker Prize, the jury praised his combination of “love of architecture with a profound knowledge of building materials and techniques. His fascination with technology is not merely for artistic effect, but more importantly, it is a clear echo of a building’s program and a means to make architecture more productive for those it serves. His championing of energy efficiency and sustainability has had a lasting effect on the profession.”