Archinect - News

Centre Pompidou extends planned closure to five years

2023-05-12T11:14:00-04:00

The Centre Pompidou, Paris’s top museum for modern and contemporary art, has officially set out plans to close for five years starting in 2025 while it undergoes a €262 million ($283.6 million) renovation. Although the museum had previously announced a long-term shuttering, it was expected to begin this year and last only through 2027. Now, the museum has lengthened its closure period by a year. The new timeline also means the museum will not reopen in time for its 50th anniversary in 2027.

Details on the extent of the renovations remain thin but reportedly will entail asbestos removal and upgrades to the high-tech marvel’s highly-visible mechanical systems, heating, and AC. The museum will thus operate out of its forthcoming satellites in Brussels and Jersey City, New Jersey, designed by noAarchitecten, EM2N, and Sergison Bates (Belgium) and OMA (United States), respectively, beginning in 2025.

Centre Pompidou President Serge Lasvignes said previously, “This work guarantees a future for the Centre Pompidou. It is essential if it is to remain a world icon of modernity and architecture.” Meanwhile, a new retrospective exhibition of Norman Foster (who told the New York Times he was on hand at its 1977 opening in support of his friend Richard Rogers) debuted Wednesday and will remain on view until August 7th.

Richard Rogers’ Channel 4 headquarters gains Grade II-listed status in London

2023-04-03T11:58:00-04:00

Following an advocacy campaign by Historic England, the UK's Department for Culture, Media and Sport recently granted Grade II-listed status to Richard Rogers Partnership’s 1994 Channel 4 headquarters building in Westminster, London, answering some concerns as to its future after the property was targeted for a private sell-off by the struggling broadcaster just last year.

The group’s official entry praised it as a demonstrative and highly sophisticated design that displayed all the key elements of the High-Tech movement while functioning rather seamlessly as the flexible first home of the country’s high-brow intellectual mainstay.

The Channel 4 Building, 124-126 Horseferry Road, London © Historic England Archive DP434074

Historic England cited this status also in terms of its cultural significance, emphasizing its early-90s commissioning came on the heels of Rogers’ seminal Lloyd’s Building and stating that it was one of the “most significant” UK projects of the Italian-born Briti...

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is setting up shop in New York this fall

2022-06-14T12:56:00-04:00

In anticipation of scaling up its recent slate of work within the country, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is said to be opening an office in New York this fall –representing the firm’s first expansion into an American market in its illustrious 42-year history.

Associate partner Georgina Robleddo, who has been with Rogers Stirk Harbour since 2003, will head the new office. The firm, which has initiated projects in Philadelphia and Manhattan in the past few years, says it has thus far remained “cautious of overtrading in unfamiliar markets” but “expect that the percentage of turnover coming from outside of the UK will continue to grow.”

Previously on Archinect: Richard Rogers was a colorful character in a world of concrete and steel

Since 2020, the firm says it has received some 73% of its contracts from overseas. Only 12% of that total currently comes from the Americas. The firm also recently opened an office in Shenzhen for similar reasons. Robleddo says she hopes to be in the offic...

Lloyd's has dropped plans to reimagine its Richard Rogers-designed office in a potential portent to its future

2022-01-31T17:20:00-05:00

As a follow up to the recent surprising news that insurance giant Lloyd’s of London may be considering a potential exit from the award-winning Lime Street headquarters designed for them by late architect Richard Rogers in the late 1970s (opened in 1986), The Architect’s Journal UK is now reporting that the company has also paused previously announced plans to overhaul a major portion of the building in what could be a sign about the future status of its lifelong tenant.

The all-important Underwriting Room within Lloyd’s was supposed to be the subject of the planned fixes, although now plans are being revisited, according to a spokesperson for the company. Lloyd’s is saying it has made the decision to step back from the project its CEO said would be a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for architects in order to “ensure our vision for the future of this space is in line with the market’s needs and fit for purpose.”

Rogers’ original design of the Lloyd’s building included the multistor...

Lloyd's of London is mulling an exit from Richard Rogers' award-winning headquarters building

2022-01-24T20:31:00-05:00

Lloyd's of London (SOLYD.UL) is considering whether to remain in its flagship City of London headquarters and may make a decision this year, the commercial insurance market said on Tuesday.

The news comes just over a month after the death of its Pritzker-winning architect in London at the age of 88. A Lloyd’s spokesperson pointed to the shifts in workplace culture brought on by the Coronavirus as significant factors behind the potential change.

The insurance giant's headquarters is one of several listed buildings in the Lime Street vicinity and was bought in 2013 by a Chinese insurance company, which holds the current lease until 2031 with a clause that can be broken in 2026, according to a real estate publication called React.

Interior view of the Lloyd's building. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user Lloyd's of London (CC BY 2.5)

"As we adapt to new structures and flexible ways of working, we are continuing to carefully think about the future requirements for the spaces and services our marketplace needs," the company said in an email to Reuters. "Like many other organisations, we are considering a range of options around our workspace strategy and the future l...

Los Angeles was a constant source of inspiration for Richard Rogers

2021-12-24T15:40:00-05:00

Rogers never designed any buildings in California. (The closest he came was the competition for the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco, where his firm’s concept ultimately lost out to a proposal by César Pelli.) But California remained an influence and Los Angeles remained top of mind — though frequently as an example of what not to do.

The colorful architect, who passed away last week at the age of 88, looked to the city’s expansive stock of mid-century modern showcase pieces to inform his own designs, including the Wimbledon House and later in his attempts at urban planning, referencing the city’s notorious sprawl repeatedly in his 1998 book Cities for a Small Planet.

“The Eames House is one of the prime exemplars that have shaped my mind,” he said in a 1989 interview of the Pacific Palisades Home built by the Eameses in 1949. “Its amazing simplicity and economy of style, that seems to have sprung fully fledged from Eames’ head, is a model of perfection in Modern design.”

Rogers was hooked after a trip he made with fellow Yale classmate Norman Foster in the late 1950s, according to the LA Times’ Carolina Miranda.

"We raced around California, seeing as many of the Case Study houses as possible," Rogers recalled in his 2017 memoir A Place for all People. "I had written my thesis at Yale on Schindler, so I felt lik...

Richard Rogers was a colorful character in a world of concrete and steel

2021-12-20T17:23:00-05:00

Heavyweight, humanist, intellectual hero, and pioneer of the high-tech style. Such are the remembrances of a beloved architectural icon seen in the outpouring of tributes circulating on social media following the death of Richard Rogers in London over the weekend.

Reminiscent of the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, Rogers was a genius in the application of color theory to his creative work. His breakthrough Pompidou Center is considered a landmark in part for its incorporation of symbolic color coding as signifiers of the building’s mechanical services and can trace its inspiration to early projects such as the unbuilt Zip-Up House and family home in Wimbledon.

A model of the Zip-Up house courtesy of Loz Pycock via Flickr.

Born in Florence and educated at the Architectural Association and Yale, Rogers was known for his attire as well as his architecture, affecting a style that was noted by almost every architecture student, designer, and member of the press that he interacted with...

Richard Rogers dies at 88

2021-12-18T17:40:00-05:00

Acclaimed Italian-British architect, Richard Rogers, has passed away at the age of 88. As the NYT reports, news of his passing was confirmed by his son Roo, without a cause of death specified.

A little over a year ago Rogers announced his retirement from his namesake architecture firm, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

More to follow in coming days...

Richard Rogers' first residential building in NYC, No. 33 Park Row, nears completion

2021-01-18T15:14:00-05:00

Sitting across the street from New York's City Hall Park in the Financial District, the first residential building in NYC designed by Richard Rogers and Graham Stirk of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, No. 33 Park Row, is nearing completion. First renderings of the building appeared on Archinect in May 2018.

Image courtesy of No. 33 Park Row.

Developed by Centurion Real Estate Partners and standing 331 feet tall, the 25-story steel-and-glass condo tower with its signature copper screen fins along the exterior will feature 30 residential units.

Image courtesy of No. 33 Park Row.

Official launch of the building is expected this spring.

Centre Pompidou Paris may receive a major overhaul

2020-09-29T16:14:00-04:00

The Centre Pompidou in Paris could close for up to three years for essential maintenance work to be carried out on the famous 1970s building. The plan is one of two options under consideration by the French government who will decide how to proceed with the multi-million euro refurbishment.

Richard Rogers to step down from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

2020-09-01T13:27:00-04:00

British-Italian architect Richard Rogers will soon retire from his namesake architecture firm, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), which was founded in 1977.

Rogers is one of the leading lights of late-20th century High-Tech architecture, and helped design many significant buildings, including the Pompidou Center, the Lloyd's of London building, the Millennium Dome, and Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 structure.

BuildingDesign reports that the firm recently filed paperwork in conjunction with Rogers's departure in order to set a name-change for the practice into motion. The firm's constitution requires that a principal's name be removed from the firm's title once within two years of their departure. The remaining partners, Ivan Harbour and Graham Stirk, have indicated previously that the name of the firm could simply become "Stirk Harbour & Partners," though it is possible they may add the names of recently elevated partners to the title, as well.

BD reports that Rogers's retirem...

London's Millennium Dome is turning 20

2019-12-06T15:15:00-05:00

It was supposed to be the ultimate symbol of Cool Britannia. Instead it became a nightmare that exposed the spin and hubris of the New Labour project [...]

The Observer's architecture critic, Rowan Moore, revisits the events leading up to the opening night debacle of the Richard Rogers-designed and much hyped, but ultimately failed, London Millennium Dome on January 1st, 2000.

"The Millennium Experience that it contained then is dimly remembered, like a TV soap opera that didn’t catch on," Moore writes. "It was eclipsed, as Blairite catastrophes go, by the invasion of Iraq three years later."

Aerial view of the Dome in 2005. Photo: Messer Woland/Wikimedia Commons

'We believe there is no good Brexit:' British architects respond to impending EU withdrawal

2019-03-21T13:59:00-04:00

Just like manufacturing, architecture is dependent on international trade. British architects export their services, bringing back work and revenues, while a net influx of foreign architects fills offices: A fifth of the profession nationwide is foreign, and in London, a third, according to British architect Piers Taylor. Norman Foster, who heads Foster + Partners, more than 1,000 architects strong, said, “My practice absolutely depends on talent, and much of that talent is foreign.”

The Los Angeles Times details responses of leading British architects, including David Chipperfield, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, in the light of the looming March 29 deadline for the UK to officially leave the EU—if this Brexit happens without further delay.

"Chipperfield has emerged as architecture’s Churchill in the letter-writing campaign, as he has waged an eloquent, diplomatic campaign of letters to the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Guardian, among others," writes Joseph Giovannini for the LAT. "Like other 'remainers' who mainly argue staying in the EU in economic terms, Chipperfield does acknowledge the economic advantages of remaining, but he points out that commercial criteria and the myopia of money have crowded out the philosophical and political debate."

Last June, the AJ reported that prominent UK architecture firms, Foster + Partners and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, even considered leaving London for the European Union if Brexit meant a significan...

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners recently completed The Macallan whisky distillery in Scotland

2018-05-25T12:46:00-04:00

London-based firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners recently completed the Macallan Distillery and visitor experience in Speyside, Scotland. The design is set into the landscape of the The Macallan estate, a distillery established in 1824 producing one of the most sought after whiskys in the world.

Macallan Distillery by RSHP, located in Speyside, Scotland. Image: RSHP.

The firm's goals was to create a building that could reveal the production processes and welcome visitors while remaining sensitive to the beautiful surrounding countryside.

Macallan Distillery by RSHP, located in Speyside, Scotland. Image: RSHP.

The new distillery will enable production of The Macallan to increase by a third. Internally, a series of production cells are arranged in a linear format with an open-plan layout revealing all stages of the production process at once.

Macallan Distillery by RSHP, located in Speyside, Scotland. Image: RSHP.

Macallan Distillery by RSHP, located in Speyside, Scotland. Image: RSHP...

Fresh renderings for One Beekman, Richard Rogers’ first residential building in the U.S.

2018-05-10T13:26:00-04:00

New renderings have been unveiled for One Beekman, a mixed-use development designed by Richard Rogers, and it has nearly reached its 25-story pinnacle in the Financial District. As the firm’s first residential project in the United States, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners have designed a tower that provides every single apartment with views of City Hall Park by shifting the circulation core to the south, according to the New York Times. The front of the building is open with oversized windows, allowing for half of the 31 total condo units to have outdoor terraces overlooking the park.

The 95,000-square-foot development at 1 Beekman Street, nicknamed the “Pearl on the Park,” boasts a glassy facade and will feature a glazing system at its base for a more transparent look into the building’s lobby and retail stores.

According to Urban Muse, RSH+P used materials that “express their natural characteristics–and convey the inherent warmth and texture appropriate to residential dwellings.” T...

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano will get their very own statues in front of the Centre Pompidou

2017-09-27T15:35:00-04:00

The French artist Xavier Veilhan has created sculptures of the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers that will be permanently installed next month in Place Edmond Michelet outside the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The pair designed the distinctive museum, which opened in 1977.

Don't miss our 2015-podcast interview with Xavier Veilhan for Archinect Sessions. We talked with the Paris-based artist and his Los Angeles-collaborator, François Perrin, about their series of interventions into some of the world's most famous modernist landmarks and the resulting book, Architectones.

Richard Rogers challenges Prince Charles to public debate over built environment

2017-09-22T15:46:00-04:00

Richard Rogers has challenged Prince Charles to engage in public debate over Britain’s built environment after claiming he knows of five developers who privately consulted him over their choice of architects because they fear his opposition. The Labour peer and designer of the Pompidou Centre reopened a simmering row over the heir to the throne’s interventions in architecture by alleging in a new book that the developers consulted the palace “to check what would be acceptable”.

The Guardian cites Rogers' thoughts on the Prince from his new memoir, A Place for All People: "I don’t believe that the Prince of Wales understands architecture. He thinks it is fixed at one point in the past (for him, classicism – an odd choice as it is not a style with deep roots in England), rather than an evolving language of technology and materials. But if he is not going to join in debate, it hardly matters whether his opinions are right or wrong. He occupies a privileged position, and he should not use that to damage the livelihoods of people he disagrees with."

Richard Rogers on the Centre Pompidou: "I would never dream of doing it now"

2017-08-29T14:08:00-04:00

Where we would be without the energetic (if usually misinformed) enthusiasm of youth? Apparently, without the Centre Pompidou as we know it. In this comprehensive and enjoyable profile in The Guardian, Richard Rogers reflects on his early days as an architect after he and his freshly-made friend Renzo Piano had won a competition in Paris for the now famous cultural center.

Image: Bruno via Flickr

As the article relates, "Having won it, they had no idea what it was that he was taking on. 'Young architects are immensely naive,' [Rogers] says. 'I would never dream of doing it now. We had a great client, but the press gave us hell. In seven years, there were only two positive articles. I don’t know how we got to the end.'"

The Harvard GSD unveils restored Richard Rogers’ Wimbledon House in London

2017-06-28T13:25:00-04:00

Wimbledon house in London, UK, designed by Lord Rogers in 1968, was gifted to Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2015 to provide both a residence for the Richard Rogers Fellowship, and GSD's new venue for lectures, symposia, and other events. Restored by British architect Philip Gumuchdjian and landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan since 2015, the house premiered yesterday, on June 27.

Philip Gumuchdjian, commented “Parkside is not just an iconic, flexible machine for living, nor simply a historic experimental building that foretold the architect’s future work; it was also a home with a unique memory, patina, and aura. Conserving these qualities within a wholly refurbished twenty-first-century building tailored to Harvard’s new use was our aim and hopefully the achievement of the team’s work.”

Richard Rogers’s Wimbledon House. Photograph by Iwan Baan. Courtesy of Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, whom re-designed the garden context from the street front...

The Pompidou Centre to get a €100M facelift

2017-01-20T12:33:00-05:00

Even the most punk of buildings eventually gets older. The Pompidou Centre in Paris, the landmark contemporary art museum designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, turns forty this year. To mark its birthday, the museum will get a two-year long facelift estimated to cost at least €100 million.

The renovations will include replacing the “caterpillar”, the famous escalators on the front of the building, but won’t result in any changes to the building’s overall appearance. Additionally, museum officials are hoping that renovations can occur without closing the Centre.

Part of the reason the building needs the renovation is that its innovative design, which comprises putting the inner workings of the building on its exterior, has led to increased wear and tear. Back in the day, its appearance caused a ton of controversy. But today, the museum is witnessing a rise in attendance that surpasses either the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay.

Want to live (and work) in Richard Rogers' Wimbledon House? Apply to Harvard's new Richard Rogers Fellowship

2016-10-12T13:33:00-04:00

The Wimbledon House, a landmarked building designed by Lord Richard Rogers in the late 1960s, has been donated to Harvard Graduate School of Design and will host a new research residency program. Dubbed the Richard Rogers Fellowship, the program is open to accomplished professionals and scholars working in fields related to the built environment.

Accepted applicants, pooled from an international open call, will inhabit the Wimbledon House for three months. Harvard will provide travel expenses to London and a $10,000 USD prize. The residency is intended to foster research around alternative and sustainable futures, in line with Rogers’ own cross-disciplinary, research-driven practice.

The house, a bright yellow modern masterpiece, was originally designed for Rogers’ parents. It will also serve as a venue for lectures and events in 2017.

Applications for the residency are due by November 28, 2016 and winners will be announced in early December.

For more information on the Fellowship, head...

Tell us what does the EU referendum means to you

2016-06-22T11:33:00-04:00

According to a recent poll by the AJ 78% of architects want Britain to remain in the EU. In May David Chipperfield, Richard Rogers, Amanda Levete, and Thomas Heatherwick were among many prolific industry professionals who vocalised their decision to back the remain campaign with an open letter published in the Telegraph.

With less than 24 hours before voting begins is this percentage still the same? How will the referendum and aftermath affect the industry? And why are you voting to remain or leave? We want to know what you think.

RIBA announces 30 projects selected for International Prize

2016-05-10T15:16:00-04:00

The 30 buildings to be visited by the RIBA awards committee and under consideration for the inaugural RIBA International Prize have been announced today. This is the first RIBA award open to any qualified architect in the world and includes projects of varying size and budget.

Consequently the buildings span 20 different countries across the globe such as; Mexico, Turkey, Dublin and Vietnam. The selected projects will be whittled down to 20 and then a final six in the autumn, with the winner announced in December 2016.

The six finalist chosen will be visited by the Grand Jury which includes Richard Rogers, Billie Tsien and Marilyn Jordan Taylor FAIA among others.

RIBA President, Jane Duncan commented:

“We have been delighted with the response to our inaugural RIBA International Prize, which has brought a huge range of exceptional entries from all around the globe.It will be fascinating to see insights from the judges and entrants intothe power and value of great architecture, whe...

RIBA launches new International Prize for world's best new building, Richard Rogers to chair Grand Jury

2015-12-08T13:43:00-05:00

RIBA is establishing their own award for the world's best new building of the year, naming it the RIBA International Prize. Launched today, the International Prize will be awarded to the building that best "demonstrate[s] visionary, innovative thinking and excellence of execution, whilst making a distinct contribution to its users and to its physical context," regardless of style, scheme type, and budget. According to RIBA, the International Prize was created for "the general advancement of Civil architecture", as stated in their 1837 charter.

Registered architects around the world can send submissions until the February 9 deadline. For the first edition of the prize, submitted buildings must have been completed within the past three years (Jan. 1, 2013 - Feb. 1, 2016). Afterward, the prize will be awarded to a building completed within 2 years.

The full list of the Grand Jury won't be revealed until early 2016, but it includes three notable names so far: Jury Chair Richard Rogers, fo...

Robin Hood Gardens residents dare Lord Rogers to spend a night in the blighted estate

2015-06-23T18:12:00-04:00

When Lord Rogers launched a campaign to save one of London’s most notorious housing estates from demolition, he was adamant that it was a desirable place to live. [...] It is a claim he may regret. Unhappy residents of the estate have challenged the peer to be true to his word and swap his £12 million Chelsea townhouse for a few nights in one of their blighted flats.

Previously: Robin Hood Gardens Set For Demolition

Session 14: His bjark is BIGger than his bjite – A chat with Bjarke Ingels at the opening of BIG's "Hot to Cold" exhibition

2015-01-29T15:25:00-05:00

This episode is a doozy. Paul and Amelia left the temperate sunshine of Los Angeles for Washington, DC's frigid monumentality, to interview Bjarke Ingels on the eve of his "Hot to Cold" exhibition at the National Building Museum. The 40-year old architect shared some quick-won wisdom about scaling a business, the Danish condition, and the indispensability of humor and play in architecture.

Donna and Ken joined Paul and Amelia to speak with Lian Chang about her recently published visualizations of the Archinect Salary Poll for the ACSA, in charming emoji-based data sets. The Sessions co-hosts also discuss Aaron Betsky's new appointment as the head of the deeply troubled Taliesin West, and what Thom Mayne's demolition of Ray Bradbury's house means for architecture preservation and sentimentality.

And for another climatological analogy, Paul and Brian Newman, Archinect Sessions's legal correspondent, poke at the tip of the iceberg concerning issues of copyright in architecture.

A remind...

Cheesegrater skyscraper loses another bolt – the third one in three months

2015-01-15T14:36:00-05:00

The owners of the 222-metre (734ft) “Cheesegrater” building, the second tallest building in the City of London, are to replace dozens of long bolts on its structure after it was revealed that another one had fractured. The bolts, among 3,000 on the building’s 15,000-tonne frame, are each just under a metre long. Two snapped in November, with some debris falling to the ground from the fifth floor. Nobody was hurt, but an area below the tower is still cordoned off.

Previously: Bolt part falls off Cheesegrater skyscraper in the City of London

Centre Pompidou To Open Design and Architecture Gallery

2014-11-06T14:01:00-05:00

[...] a gallery dedicated to design and architecture will soon also be added the Centre. Like the “Galerie de Photographies," which is housed in former technical facilities, the future design gallery will be located within the existing Piano + Rogers-designed building. “Eventually, there should be almost no offices in the building, and we'll keep only the technical facilities that are strictly indispensable," said Seban.

Bolt part falls off Cheesegrater skyscraper in the City of London

2014-11-06T13:41:00-05:00

No-one was injured but an area around the 47-storey Leadenhall Building in the city has been cordoned off. It fell from the fifth floor to the ground at the side of the building - another bolt also broke off but was contained within the skyscraper. It is understood the bolts are about the size of an arm and the piece that fell was about the size of a hand.

The Cheesegrater – a tower of no small ambition

2014-08-25T13:40:00-04:00

Someone has told the bouncers to be nice. It is now standard for architectural anoraks like myself to find ourselves challenged by smile-less security as we go about our blameless business – no loitering, no photography, no looking, as if al-Qaida scouts would do their dastardly work in this way or as if, years after the invention of the camera phone, photography can be controlled as it could in the age of the tripod. But not at the base of the Cheesegrater.