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...

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...

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Los Angeles was a constant source of inspiration for Richard Rogers

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