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| Richard Rogers: the man who taught us to love colour | Richard Rogers: the man who taught us to love colour |
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| Richard Rogers, in an orange shirt, is sitting on a pink sofa against a yellow background. To one side is a green Wimbledon garden and around him evidence of different generations of his family. There is the work of his potter mother, and the creations of his grandchildren, as his son Ab currently lives here and has his design studio in what was his mother's pottery. He shows me, in the main bedroom, a delicate cabinet that opens to reveal an interior of mirrors, precisely fitted. This was a wedding present from Rogers's architect uncle Ernesto, designed by him, to Rogers's parents, to furnish their flat with a view of the Duomo in Florence. | Richard Rogers, in an orange shirt, is sitting on a pink sofa against a yellow background. To one side is a green Wimbledon garden and around him evidence of different generations of his family. There is the work of his potter mother, and the creations of his grandchildren, as his son Ab currently lives here and has his design studio in what was his mother's pottery. He shows me, in the main bedroom, a delicate cabinet that opens to reveal an interior of mirrors, precisely fitted. This was a wedding present from Rogers's architect uncle Ernesto, designed by him, to Rogers's parents, to furnish their flat with a view of the Duomo in Florence. |
| The space is 1960s, the time of Rogers's youth, colourful, with low-slung furniture, open space, big windows. He is relaxed, recalling when "these people were so daring", as he says of himself and his fellow young architects of the time. | The space is 1960s, the time of Rogers's youth, colourful, with low-slung furniture, open space, big windows. He is relaxed, recalling when "these people were so daring", as he says of himself and his fellow young architects of the time. |
| We are in the house that Rogers designed with his first wife, Su, for his parents in 1969. Along with a house for the photographer and designer Humphrey Spender, it launched his career as an independent architect. It has most of the distinctive characteristics that he would later use on larger buildings like the Pompidou Centre, such as the use of factory-made components in steel and glass, those bright colours, and a plan which, in principle, allows internal partitions to be rearranged at will. "The birth of the Pompidou Centre could be said to be here," he says. | We are in the house that Rogers designed with his first wife, Su, for his parents in 1969. Along with a house for the photographer and designer Humphrey Spender, it launched his career as an independent architect. It has most of the distinctive characteristics that he would later use on larger buildings like the Pompidou Centre, such as the use of factory-made components in steel and glass, those bright colours, and a plan which, in principle, allows internal partitions to be rearranged at will. "The birth of the Pompidou Centre could be said to be here," he says. |
| Rogers will turn 80 on 23 July, an event that will be marked by an exhibition at the Royal Academy. His achievements will be arrayed there – the Pompidou, the Lloyd's Building, the Millennium Dome, Madrid-Barajas airport, the "Cheesegrater" tower being built in the City of London, his campaigns to improve the public spaces of British cities. He and Norman Foster, with whom he was in partnership in his early career, are the two dominant figures in British architecture; between them they have changed architecture, and cities, around the world. | Rogers will turn 80 on 23 July, an event that will be marked by an exhibition at the Royal Academy. His achievements will be arrayed there – the Pompidou, the Lloyd's Building, the Millennium Dome, Madrid-Barajas airport, the "Cheesegrater" tower being built in the City of London, his campaigns to improve the public spaces of British cities. He and Norman Foster, with whom he was in partnership in his early career, are the two dominant figures in British architecture; between them they have changed architecture, and cities, around the world. |
| It is revealing to travel back a half-century, before he won a peerage, a knighthood and a Pritzker, to a time when Rogers was an ambitious but struggling architect, just beginning to attract attention for his bold designs. The level of output was lower – a private house from time to time, a single factory – but here you can see ideas incubating that would eventually shape landmarks in Paris and London. Three houses in particular stand out – the Wimbledon and Spender houses, and Creek Vean in Cornwall. What is striking is the persistence over decades of ideas of openness and fluidity, and an aesthetic of brightly coloured industrial materials. Also courage, the ability to gather people of talent around him, a certain recklessness and ruthlessness in pursuit of his architectural ambitions, and the assumption that beautiful ends justify risky means, that extraordinary buildings are worth a few leaks, high heating bills and budget overruns. | It is revealing to travel back a half-century, before he won a peerage, a knighthood and a Pritzker, to a time when Rogers was an ambitious but struggling architect, just beginning to attract attention for his bold designs. The level of output was lower – a private house from time to time, a single factory – but here you can see ideas incubating that would eventually shape landmarks in Paris and London. Three houses in particular stand out – the Wimbledon and Spender houses, and Creek Vean in Cornwall. What is striking is the persistence over decades of ideas of openness and fluidity, and an aesthetic of brightly coloured industrial materials. Also courage, the ability to gather people of talent around him, a certain recklessness and ruthlessness in pursuit of his architectural ambitions, and the assumption that beautiful ends justify risky means, that extraordinary buildings are worth a few leaks, high heating bills and budget overruns. |
| Before Richard and Su Rogers set up their own practice, and designed the Wimbledon house, they were part of Team 4, along with Norman Foster (whom he met at Yale) and his first wife, Wendy. Together they designed, for Su's parents, Marcus and Rene Brumwell, a house at Creek Vean. It was completed in 1967 after a four-year gestation, and is a place packed with the ideas Rogers and Foster had learned when students at Yale. It shows, for example, the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, with a flow of movement through interlocking spaces, an interaction of building and nature, and complicated angular geometry. | Before Richard and Su Rogers set up their own practice, and designed the Wimbledon house, they were part of Team 4, along with Norman Foster (whom he met at Yale) and his first wife, Wendy. Together they designed, for Su's parents, Marcus and Rene Brumwell, a house at Creek Vean. It was completed in 1967 after a four-year gestation, and is a place packed with the ideas Rogers and Foster had learned when students at Yale. It shows, for example, the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, with a flow of movement through interlocking spaces, an interaction of building and nature, and complicated angular geometry. |
| If the Wimbledon house is Technicolor, Creek Vean is monochrome, made more so on a day of soft Cornish drizzle. The palette of the architecture is disciplined, grey on grey, with the same concrete blocks inside and out, slate floors, slender aluminium window frames, and timber doors cut to fit the angles of the blocks. Outside, the landscape is lush, with a plunge down to the wooded creek and pines overhanging the house, and on a better day the interiors would be washed with sunshine. To all this the austere tones are a foil. | If the Wimbledon house is Technicolor, Creek Vean is monochrome, made more so on a day of soft Cornish drizzle. The palette of the architecture is disciplined, grey on grey, with the same concrete blocks inside and out, slate floors, slender aluminium window frames, and timber doors cut to fit the angles of the blocks. Outside, the landscape is lush, with a plunge down to the wooded creek and pines overhanging the house, and on a better day the interiors would be washed with sunshine. To all this the austere tones are a foil. |
| The house is in two parts, with a higher block containing a living room, and kitchen and dining, and a lower, long wing with bedrooms and a long gallery for the Brumwells' art collection. You enter across a bridge towards a rectangular opening that at first shows nothing but the view, before arriving at an open space between the two parts of the house. Straight ahead some steep, thickly planted steps descend towards the water, and to the right you can look down a glass roof into the picture gallery. To the left you can enter the higher block, and under your feet, though you don't really know it, is the passage that connects the two. House and landscape are spliced and overlaid, and what might be thought ground level turns out to be roof. | The house is in two parts, with a higher block containing a living room, and kitchen and dining, and a lower, long wing with bedrooms and a long gallery for the Brumwells' art collection. You enter across a bridge towards a rectangular opening that at first shows nothing but the view, before arriving at an open space between the two parts of the house. Straight ahead some steep, thickly planted steps descend towards the water, and to the right you can look down a glass roof into the picture gallery. To the left you can enter the higher block, and under your feet, though you don't really know it, is the passage that connects the two. House and landscape are spliced and overlaid, and what might be thought ground level turns out to be roof. |
| Inside the front door you are presented with split levels – up for the living area, down for the kitchen-diner – which act as balconies for the seaward view, framed by a large wall of glass. Slate steps of alarming steepness and angularity take you up to a roof terrace, and another route connects you to the long gallery and the bedrooms. Doors are as much as possible sliding, disappearing when open, such that the interior becomes a single, intricate, masonry shell. | Inside the front door you are presented with split levels – up for the living area, down for the kitchen-diner – which act as balconies for the seaward view, framed by a large wall of glass. Slate steps of alarming steepness and angularity take you up to a roof terrace, and another route connects you to the long gallery and the bedrooms. Doors are as much as possible sliding, disappearing when open, such that the interior becomes a single, intricate, masonry shell. |
| The house is now inhabited by the architect Dick Dickinson and his wife, Gill, who compare it to Sir Edwin Lutyens's Castle Drogo, in neighbouring Devon. For all its modernity and precision, there is something massive and castle-like about Creek Vean. And although it can look dull in photographs, it is romantic and dramatic. | |
| As well as the four partners of Team 4, Creek Vean is the work of Laurie Abbott, who later became a partner of Richard Rogers's practice, and another architect, Frank Peacock. It's tempting to try to unpick who did what: Abbott is said to have been behind its precise details, while Su Rogers is credited with the kitchen's island unit, a big generous piece of stainless steel, curved at the ends, around which people can gather to cook together. The entrance bridge is a device that Foster would use again, on larger buildings. The romance of the castle-like forms, emerging from thick vegetation, might owe something to Richard Rogers. | As well as the four partners of Team 4, Creek Vean is the work of Laurie Abbott, who later became a partner of Richard Rogers's practice, and another architect, Frank Peacock. It's tempting to try to unpick who did what: Abbott is said to have been behind its precise details, while Su Rogers is credited with the kitchen's island unit, a big generous piece of stainless steel, curved at the ends, around which people can gather to cook together. The entrance bridge is a device that Foster would use again, on larger buildings. The romance of the castle-like forms, emerging from thick vegetation, might owe something to Richard Rogers. |
| All would rightly say that it was a team effort. With so many ambitious young architects working on one house, the result could have been like putting cats in a sack; or else an overspiced stew of all the ideas that each was struggling to get out. In fact its aesthetics are restrained, the richness of its spaces offset by the simplicity of its materials. | All would rightly say that it was a team effort. With so many ambitious young architects working on one house, the result could have been like putting cats in a sack; or else an overspiced stew of all the ideas that each was struggling to get out. In fact its aesthetics are restrained, the richness of its spaces offset by the simplicity of its materials. |
| It was not, however, achieved without pain. "Poor Marcus," says Rogers now, "he had to be forced into having us. It wasn't an easy experience." The project took six architects four years to achieve, he says, and "we nearly went bankrupt, and my in-laws nearly went bankrupt". The latter had to sell a Mondrian to pay for it. It wasn't cheap, for example, to cut the concrete blocks to fit the building's unusual angles. Dick Dickinson, who has researched the history of the construction, says one building worker spent two years doing nothing else. | |
| For Rogers it was a scarring, formative experience. From now on he would avoid as much as possible the messier building methods, such as concrete block walls that have to be laid with wet mortar, and have to be made on muddy, rainy sites. He would prefer steel, glass and aluminium, and elements that could be made in the controlled conditions of factories. He saw this as a social as well as a practical choice. It was a time when the country was said to require 300,000 homes a year, and architects saw it as their duty to design for this need. "Every architect I knew worked for a local authority," says Rogers. The expenditure of time on a single bespoke house like Creek Vean was a reckless luxury. | For Rogers it was a scarring, formative experience. From now on he would avoid as much as possible the messier building methods, such as concrete block walls that have to be laid with wet mortar, and have to be made on muddy, rainy sites. He would prefer steel, glass and aluminium, and elements that could be made in the controlled conditions of factories. He saw this as a social as well as a practical choice. It was a time when the country was said to require 300,000 homes a year, and architects saw it as their duty to design for this need. "Every architect I knew worked for a local authority," says Rogers. The expenditure of time on a single bespoke house like Creek Vean was a reckless luxury. |
| After Creek Vean, Team 4 built Reliance Controls, a now-demolished factory in Swindon that put the new principles into practice. Then came the split, and Richard and Su Rogers designed the Wimbledon and Spender houses, which were seen as prototypes for a new, more efficient way of building homes, inspired by modern houses that Rogers had seen in California. | After Creek Vean, Team 4 built Reliance Controls, a now-demolished factory in Swindon that put the new principles into practice. Then came the split, and Richard and Su Rogers designed the Wimbledon and Spender houses, which were seen as prototypes for a new, more efficient way of building homes, inspired by modern houses that Rogers had seen in California. |
| Both the Wimbledon and the Spender houses use yellow painted steel frames that span the full width of the building. There are no load-bearing walls or columns inside, to create what Rogers calls "fluid, changeable space". Their walls are either in glass or in metal panels and, in Wimbledon, some of the windows were of a type used on buses. | Both the Wimbledon and the Spender houses use yellow painted steel frames that span the full width of the building. There are no load-bearing walls or columns inside, to create what Rogers calls "fluid, changeable space". Their walls are either in glass or in metal panels and, in Wimbledon, some of the windows were of a type used on buses. |
| They are expressions, Rogers says, of the values he learned from his parents, his potter mother and his doctor father – anglophile and with an English surname, but Italian. Their ethos was "1930s Bauhaus", and they taught him "never to be afraid of the new". He thinks he might also have acquired his love of bright colours from his mother, who was "a very elegant and a very beautiful woman". He recalls being embarrassed, in the drab yea rs of postwar austerity, when she turned up at the school gate in dazzling clothes, but their influence has stuck. | They are expressions, Rogers says, of the values he learned from his parents, his potter mother and his doctor father – anglophile and with an English surname, but Italian. Their ethos was "1930s Bauhaus", and they taught him "never to be afraid of the new". He thinks he might also have acquired his love of bright colours from his mother, who was "a very elegant and a very beautiful woman". He recalls being embarrassed, in the drab yea rs of postwar austerity, when she turned up at the school gate in dazzling clothes, but their influence has stuck. |
| In neither the Wimbledon nor the Spender houses is the use of industrial methods purely a functional matter, but is used to achieve a feeling of lightness and transparency. Both are pavilions set in gardens, with interiors connected to greenery through glass walls. Both have separate studio buildings, for the pottery and for Spender's photography and design, which with the main house form half-enclosed courts. | In neither the Wimbledon nor the Spender houses is the use of industrial methods purely a functional matter, but is used to achieve a feeling of lightness and transparency. Both are pavilions set in gardens, with interiors connected to greenery through glass walls. Both have separate studio buildings, for the pottery and for Spender's photography and design, which with the main house form half-enclosed courts. |
| Both speak of freedom and of creative life, but their current inhabitation is very different. Ab Rogers has developed his own version of his father's colourful, shiny, clean-lined modernity. Humphrey Spender (who died in 2005 aged 94, after a life fully lived) filled his house with memorabilia and artefacts, and made the curtains out of textiles of his own design. His studio feels as if he had just nipped out for a cup of tea, being still a clutter of palettes, T-squares, scraps of sandpaper, objects that caught his fancy, and photographic paraphernalia. | Both speak of freedom and of creative life, but their current inhabitation is very different. Ab Rogers has developed his own version of his father's colourful, shiny, clean-lined modernity. Humphrey Spender (who died in 2005 aged 94, after a life fully lived) filled his house with memorabilia and artefacts, and made the curtains out of textiles of his own design. His studio feels as if he had just nipped out for a cup of tea, being still a clutter of palettes, T-squares, scraps of sandpaper, objects that caught his fancy, and photographic paraphernalia. |
| And it is, in truth, just as well that these houses have their beauties, as it makes up for some functional imperfections. They did not turn out to be particularly quick or efficient to build, and they did not develop techniques that effectively addressed Britain's housing shortage. The Californian inspirations were transferred to Britain with insufficient allowance for the change of climate, as a postcard from Spender to Rogers's practice, to be exhibited at the RA, shows. It is an exquisite photograph, by Spender, of the ice patterns that formed on the inside of his single-glazed walls. "Lucky I'm not a lonely 80-year-old widow in a council house," he writes. | And it is, in truth, just as well that these houses have their beauties, as it makes up for some functional imperfections. They did not turn out to be particularly quick or efficient to build, and they did not develop techniques that effectively addressed Britain's housing shortage. The Californian inspirations were transferred to Britain with insufficient allowance for the change of climate, as a postcard from Spender to Rogers's practice, to be exhibited at the RA, shows. It is an exquisite photograph, by Spender, of the ice patterns that formed on the inside of his single-glazed walls. "Lucky I'm not a lonely 80-year-old widow in a council house," he writes. |
| Spender's third wife, Rachel, lives there, and she tells me how she went on a two-month holiday to South America, which was cheaper than staying behind and paying for the heating. Also how the showers are small ("Richard didn't really think of showers"), the roof drainage didn't work, the underfloor heating broke down after 10 years and was unrepairable, how indeed "everything sort of breaks down". Also that "the sad thing for Humphrey was the lack of wall space; he was such an avid collector". | Spender's third wife, Rachel, lives there, and she tells me how she went on a two-month holiday to South America, which was cheaper than staying behind and paying for the heating. Also how the showers are small ("Richard didn't really think of showers"), the roof drainage didn't work, the underfloor heating broke down after 10 years and was unrepairable, how indeed "everything sort of breaks down". Also that "the sad thing for Humphrey was the lack of wall space; he was such an avid collector". |
| But she also says "you get maximum light, even in winter – that's why I really love it". She says children enjoy the openness, "because they can run right around it", and that she likes the space between the two buildings, which "creates a real energy". As for Humphrey, he "liked to moan, but he actually loved it". After the line about the window, Spender's postcard with the ice patterns continues: "We and the house seem to survive, even toughen up." | But she also says "you get maximum light, even in winter – that's why I really love it". She says children enjoy the openness, "because they can run right around it", and that she likes the space between the two buildings, which "creates a real energy". As for Humphrey, he "liked to moan, but he actually loved it". After the line about the window, Spender's postcard with the ice patterns continues: "We and the house seem to survive, even toughen up." |
| It's a similar story when the Dickinsons show me round Creek Vean. They tell me about their 10-year wrestle with the damp that seeps through the concrete blocks and surfaces in unexpected places, but also that "we absolutely love it. We can't stop looking at it. You always see something new." They find the connections to the outdoors "absolutely brilliant", and scorn the idea of double glazing to keep out the cold: "It would be hideous," says Gill. "I would rather put on a double fleece to keep warm." | |
| The Wimbledon house is now up for sale at £3.2m, which suggests that it has come a long way from being a prototype for mass-produced housing, but also that there is something special in its architecture that estate agents can recognise. This is the story of much of Rogers's career, and of his later and greater buildings. They don't achieve everything that they promise – neither Pompidou nor Lloyd's, for example, were as flexible as they were meant to be – but they have an emotional energy that, in the best cases, pushes aside objections. In these, as in the early houses, romance trumps function. | The Wimbledon house is now up for sale at £3.2m, which suggests that it has come a long way from being a prototype for mass-produced housing, but also that there is something special in its architecture that estate agents can recognise. This is the story of much of Rogers's career, and of his later and greater buildings. They don't achieve everything that they promise – neither Pompidou nor Lloyd's, for example, were as flexible as they were meant to be – but they have an emotional energy that, in the best cases, pushes aside objections. In these, as in the early houses, romance trumps function. |