Richard Rogers Quotes

My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we - architects - can effect the quality of life of the people.

I love my job. What would I retire to?

Cities are about juxtaposition.

Cities depend on a healthy mix of uses and people for their vitality. As a pre-eminent world city, London is a magnet to people from across the globe.

A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.

I don't understand why everyone has to wear black, grey and white.

I'm just saying that there are high quality materials, and when we change them then there should be a way of changing them so that you can celebrate that change - rather than just 'mix it up'.

In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like.

Watching TV on your own is not very inspiring. But meeting people is where you get new ideas and get things done.

Architects are not clients. We can't build without something to built.

Education in British schools isn't good enough. It's not remotely imaginative enough. It lets down too many children, excluding them from society, and, as I've often said, people who are excluded from society tend to express themselves in ways not acceptable to society.

Architecture is a living thing. If I want to leave something to the future, it has to be able to change - but retain something of the ethos that we built up over 50 years.

Architecture is measured against the past; you build in the future, and you try to imagine the future.

There are times I almost think I am not sure of what I absolutely know. Very often find confusion in conclusion I concluded long ago. In my head are many facts that, as a student, I have studied to procure. In my head are many facts of which I wish I was more certain I was sure.

'Be passionate about your work and your life' was instilled in me by my mother Dada, who was a potter. She also introduced me to the arts and encouraged me to embrace the new.

My parents always told me that nothing was impossible.

Everyone has the right to walk from one end of the city to the other in secure and beautiful spaces. Everybody has the right to go by public transport. Everybody has the right to an unhampered view down their street, not full of railings, signs and rubbish.

When I started out, nearly every architect I knew was working in public practice; that's where the radical thinking was done. But, there's always a danger of looking back as our fathers did and saying, 'Things were better then.'

I cycle, which is a healthy thing for an 80-year-old to do. I rarely go further than five miles, but in those five miles I can get to 80 percent of the places I want to go.

The only way forward, if we are going to improve the quality of the environment, is to get everybody involved.

I love cities, I spend most of my life talking about cities. And the design of cities does have an effect on your life. You're lucky if you can see trees out of your window and you have a square nearby, or a bar, a cornershop, a surgery. Then you're living well.

Architecture is about public space held by buildings.

I think we did a pretty good role, linking, being a sounding board really and a driving force, especially from the bottom up. I think that part of this is bottom up as well as top down.

I think you could make a completely Virtual Centre, though I have a general feeling, and maybe because I am getting very old, that you still need face to face.

My architecture tends to be legible, light and flexible. You can read it. You look at a building, and you can see how it is constructed. I put the structure outside.

Architecture is a slow business, and city planning even slower.

I had lots of trouble in school as a child, and I lost confidence. Teachers thought I was stupid. I learned to read very late, when I was 11. Dyslexia wasn't recognized then, and the assumption was you were incapable of thinking.

Of course I know very little about architecture, and the older I get the less I know.

Most buildings, whether they're Gothic cathedrals or Romanesque ones, were high tech for their time.

If you live in a squalid environment, then of course you are going to want to get out of it, you are probably going to want to get into the country, because that's what it does.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges facing our cities or to the housing crisis, but the two issues need to be considered together. From an urban design and planning point of view, the well-connected open city is a powerful paradigm and an engine for integration and inclusivity.

Dyslexia, though, made me realise that people who say 'but you can't do that' aren't actually very important. I don't take 'no' too seriously.

I believe very strongly, and have fought since many years ago - at least over 30 years ago - to get architecture not just within schools, but architecture talked about under history, geography, science, technology, art.

As an artist, what do you think the biggest mistake you can make is? My vote for the biggest mistake is being afraid of making mistakes.

If you had a carbon tax, you'd have less cars and more bicycles, more people getting around on foot and by public transport.