Architect whose radically innovative buildings included the Pompidou Centre and the Lloyd’s of London building
Richard Rogers, who has died aged 88, changed the face of urban Britain more than any other architect of the late 20th century. He was author of the groundbreaking Lloyd’s building in the City of London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, but his impact was manifest less in his own buildings than in his influence on public policy, which saw a fundamental shift in the perception of inner cities away from being something to endure or escape, to being something desirable to enjoy. He ushered in the era of “regeneration”, seeing British cities adorned with canal-side apartments and cafe-lined squares, if sometimes at a cost to existing communities.
Shortly after New Labour came to power in the landslide election of 1997, Rogers was appointed to chair the Urban Task Force, a quango charged with identifying the causes of urban decline in England and recommending practical solutions to bringing people back into cities and putting an end to suburban sprawl. The findings, published as Towards an Urban Renaissance in 1999, called for a new generation of “compact cities”, advocating the redevelopment of post-industrial brownfield land with high-density flats, shops and cafes, along with investment in public transport, public spaces and public facilities. Five years later, housing densities had risen from an average of 25 to 40 dwellings per hectare, and 70% of development was on brownfield land. Rogers’ principles would define the model of urban regeneration for the coming decades, for better and worse.
