Richard Rogers Architect Quotations

Clearly, private developers can have different aims, and architects can only play a certain role. You can have some pretty big battles on public commissions, too. The key is to have a good client.

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.'

Architects design buildings; that's what we do, so we have to go with the flow; and, even though I'm still an old Leftie, global capitalism does have its good side. It's broken down barriers - the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union - it's raised a lot of people up economically, and for architects, it has meant that we can work around the world.

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

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.

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

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

Architecture is about public space held by buildings.

As architects we have a responsibility to society

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

Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.

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.