Richard Rogers

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is an architect. Born in Florence to an Italian English family, he came to this country at the age of five, unable to speak a word of English.

Presenter0:38

His work often reflects the artistic divisions between England and mainland Europe. In Paris, for instance, his design for the Pompidou Centre attracts universal admiration and exceeds the Eiffel Tower in popularity. In London, his design for the Lloyds Building remains more controversial, its acclaim tempered by more traditional views. But this man enjoys being radical, and his passion for the new, for the innovative, has made him a leading figure not only in his profession, but in the world of the arts as a whole. He is Richard Rogers.

Presenter1:11

Yours is a profession, Richard, not without its critics. Do you feel sometimes that you're under constant siege?

Richard Rogers1:17

We have much to be blamed for, of course, and therefore in one sense I accept it. At the same time, no one likes to be under siege, as you call it. And it is a problem of today that architecture is in a very cr critical state, while cities are in a very critical state. So I have a a divided feeling about it.

Presenter1:36

On the other hand, it means that people are noticing what you do and they're talking about what you do, which is not to be scoffed at, is it?

Richard Rogers1:42

I think the fact that there is now a debate going is certainly good. The question of whether the debate is the right debate is more complicated.

Presenter1:51

It strikes me and I'd like to talk about the debate in a moment but it does strike me that um

Presenter1:56

Your problem is rather the same as the problem for people who make television and radio programmes. That is to say, everyone is an expert, everybody watches and listens to programmes, everybody uses and lives in or works in buildings, and therefore they know what they like and they're not afraid to say.

Richard Rogers2:12

Yes, I think this is absolutely right. Everybody has done some architecture in their life, whether it's changing a a door or whether it's uh building a house or whatever it is. So everybody's involved, and therefore everybody is is a professional in their own eyes.

Presenter2:24

and feels that they have a right to an opinion.

Presenter2:27

But the the problem arises, of course, wh when they don't like something which is your creation, unlike a television programme, um y your creations are rather more permanent. I mean architecture has no room for flights of fancy, does it?

Richard Rogers2:40

Yes, architecture is really something which you do for a client. The client chooses you and he usually chooses you because he you do the sort of architecture he thinks you do the sort of architecture that he or she wants. You then work with this client to try to express his ideas.

Presenter2:56

Yes, but if that were entirely true, then you uh your creation would be limited by the imagination of your patron.

Richard Rogers3:03

It's constrained, but th but you are constrained also positively. If you have a very good patron, then uh there's a chance you'll have a very much better building. In fact, you can't do a good building without a good patron.

Presenter3:16

Well, there are no constraints on your record choice for our Desert Island. Now, how have you chosen your eight records? Are they pieces of nostalgia or have you chosen them simply for their beauty?

Richard Rogers3:25

I've done both. I have tried to choose uh beautiful pieces, but a lot of them have memories related to them.

Presenter3:32

And what's the first one?

Richard Rogers3:33

The first one is Mozart's piano concerto in C minor, and that I think one could say is really there because of its amazing beauty. It's for me it's one of the great pieces of music. And as a piece of composition, of course, it has much which one can be inspired by as an architect. I mean there's a tremendous relationship between music and architecture.

Presenter4:52

Part of the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. twenty four, played by Vladimir Ashkenazi, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Hans Schmidt Isserstett.

Presenter5:02

Let's talk, if we may, Richard Rogers, about the British public's lack of love, I think one might call it for the architect. Do you blame them, bearing in mind the the ugly legacy of the past few decades?

Richard Rogers5:14

No, I don't blame them at all. I think that our cities are disastrous really. But um I'm not sure that it's the I feel that the architect is the messenger, and shooting the messenger is not going to cure the problem.

Presenter5:26

We have to blame the architect to an extent though, don't we? When you look at something like Birmingham's Bullring, I mean that that was the vision of an architect, surely.

Richard Rogers5:34

Well, you then have to go a step further and say who chose the architect? Why did he choose that architect? After all, today we live in a world where you can choose an architect from anywhere. I mean, it's like a concert pianist. In fact, I think what happens is that the client chooses the architect who suits his needs. And his needs are basically profit, immediate profit. And under that basis, he will choose the architect who can build the biggest enclosure for the least amount of money. And that is a very poor way of building an environment.

Presenter6:03

How does a an architect set about designing a building? I'm quite sure that people imagine that you lean back in the bath and conjure up a vision of some wonderful new building, and I'm equally sure it's not like that at all.

Richard Rogers6:14

It's a very, very slow process. If I suddenly get an idea in the bath, uh usually it's wrong.

Presenter6:22

So when and how did you get the idea for the Lloyds building, which resulted in your, as it were, putting all its innards on the outside, all of its lifts and stairs and escalators are on the outside, aren't they?

Richard Rogers6:31

It's not just an idea, it's really to do first of all with what part of the building is likely to change most quickly. And the part that's likely to change most quickly is the lifts, the electronics, the air conditioning, and so on. And if you can put those elements outside or inside where you can easily change them, then the life of the building should be extended. The problem with the Lowest Building is that it is this building which we've built is the fourth building they've occupied this century. And part of the brief, perhaps the most important part of the brief, was we want a building that lasts well into the next century. To do that, you've got to find a way in which it can be adapted to changing needs.

Presenter7:05

But that means the outline of it will alter.

Richard Rogers7:08

Yes, I believe very much that the big difference from architecture of even fifty years ago and today is that we are now beginning to move into an arch an architecture where certain parts are going to be changeable. The whole idea of sort of Platonic architecture, which is sort of frozen music, is probably dead.

Presenter7:23

Shall we have your second record?

Richard Rogers7:25

The second was Chopin Polonais in a flat, and that has a lot of memories for me because my uncle was a professor of music at the Gill Hall, and my first memories of music very, very young in Trieste, was really sitting underneath this great black Steinaway and hearing him bang away, you know, and it was full of emotion to me, and I was very close to him, and it really was not, I suppose, my introduction to the arts, and so that's why I chose it.

Presenter8:53

Artur Rubinstein playing part of Chopin's Polonaise in A Flat, opus fifty three.

Presenter8:58

I said at the beginning, Richard, that you were born in Italy, but your family were British by nationality, weren't they? Can you explain that?

Richard Rogers9:05

Yes, my great-great-grandfather left England over 100 years ago and went in fact I think to Nice because it was sunnier and more pleasant and then went to Venice and family sort of I suppose then became based between Venice and Trieste. They all married Italian women but we were always proud to be I think British because to be British I think in Italy at the turn of the century and the behavior century really was quite something. But they went on living happily, renewing their passports no doubt until 1939 when of course the crisis came and my father specifically and my mother were very anti-fascist and at this point they obviously had a choice and but they decided that they would as in their eyes return home and though I think home was sort of more of a myth in the sense that none of nobody had really been back for a hundred years.

Presenter9:53

Could they speak English?

Richard Rogers9:55

My father spoke a bit of English, and my mother, I would say, very little just school English.

Presenter9:55

Mm

Presenter9:59

And you could speak none.

Richard Rogers10:00

I could speak down.

Presenter10:01

But but tell me a bit more about the family. Was it a very cultured family? Was it a rich family?

Richard Rogers10:05

Yes, it was. Yes, it was a c a cultured family. My cousin is perhaps was the leading Italian, I suppose, intellectual architect in the postwar era. My mother's very interested in the arts, she's a potter. And we have a very close family generally.

Presenter10:21

Did you spend your childhood uh surrounded by masses of your family, as Italian families often do, adoring these children?

Richard Rogers10:26

Yes, I fill that fill that picture exactly. I came out of a very I was very fortunate and uh it was a tremendous jump coming to England. I mean, because when we came here in nineteen thirty nine, of course, we weren't able to bring anything with us, money or anything. And uh the difference was amazing and really did affect me.

Presenter10:42

How did it affect you?

Richard Rogers10:43

Well, we started in a little boarding house in Nottinghill Gate. I remember it's one single room, you know, with a meter with a put your shillings in. I remember we used to we it also had a a bath, I remember, in the room. So we used to fill the bath with hot water because we didn't have shillings. You know, it was sort of about that level. And it was, as I said, quite a come down from for a young kid who really didn't understand what it was about at all, five, six years old.

Presenter11:03

Who'd been quite spoiled?

Richard Rogers11:04

We've been quite spoiled exactly, especially by British nineteen oh.

Presenter11:05

Party

Presenter11:06

You you've got lots of children yourself, haven't you? Yes.

Richard Rogers11:08

Yes, I have five children, all boys.

Presenter11:11

Cold

Richard Rogers11:12

The youngest one is uh Bo, then the fifteen year old one is Roo. Then I have Abe, who is twenty two, and then I have Zad, who is twenty five, and Ben who's twenty six. They're all two or three no, they're all two or three letters, I guess.

Presenter11:24

There are two or three.

Presenter11:27

Right.

Richard Rogers11:28

We did it, I my wife and I mainly by sound really, first and foremost. I mean there are all sorts of little stories that people say, like um well, of course you're dyslexic, so that's so you can remember their names and you know how to spell them that way, they're nice and simple. Um and but maybe something in that too.

Presenter11:41

And you brought them up in the same way, this extended family, big noisy gatherings and so on.

Richard Rogers11:45

Very much so. We are very much a sort of a a close family. We've got a lot of I think we've all got a lot of strength from that.

Presenter11:51

You like noise, you like people, you're going to hate it on the desert island, aren't you?

Richard Rogers11:55

I'm going to have problems. Yes, I enjoy people. I love talking.

Presenter11:59

Are you any good at being alone at all?

Richard Rogers12:01

I would say no. I know that if one sh everybody says usually yes, it's going to be wonderful to get away, but I think actual th doing it would be very difficult. And once I'd read that book, I'd be having problems.

Presenter12:12

What happens then when you must have to go away on your work? What happens when you stay in hotels by yourself? Do you get lonely?

Richard Rogers12:19

I think if I had to say what hell is, I would say staying in a national hotel somewhere. That to me is absolute hell. You go to bed sort of in this room where there's nothing that you understand or feel and and it's the only thing you know you can do is probably switch the T V on and and that that is a hell for me.

Presenter12:35

It's that bad, is it?

Richard Rogers12:36

Pretty bad.

Presenter12:38

Let's have some music to cheer us up.

Richard Rogers12:40

As the third one I thought of Wilson Pickett, The Midnight Hour, and that's is uh a wonderful, lively piece which I have great memories about because it's the piece which I associate with Ruth, my second wife, and it just seemed to me to be very much like her, full of life.

Speaker 413:03

Wait till the midnight hour

Speaker 413:06

Let's see my love.

Speaker 413:08

Tumbling down.

Speaker 413:13

Midnight hours.

Speaker 413:15

Ah

Speaker 413:17

No one else around.

Speaker 413:25

Saying what's your

Presenter13:28

Wilson Pickett in the Midnight Hour.

Presenter13:31

So you came to this country. You were eight five, and it was a pretty bleak business, as you've described, Richard. Uh eventually you were sent off to boarding school, where you turned out to be both difficult and dyslexic, and foreign. I mean wh which did you suffer from most?

Richard Rogers13:44

I don't think I knew I was dyslexic. That's a new word by comparison with my period, should we say. So I think that sort of dyslexia and being difficult and being downright stupid, I think we're all pretty well mixed up. I think also being foreign, though, I don't think I realised what it was about. And going to boarding school because my mother fell ill, she got TB, and leaving sort of the warmth of the family was extremely difficult. I hated it. I was tremendously unhappy. I became disorientated. I was unable to read anyhow because of my dyslexia. I learned to read when I was about 11. Everything went wrong, and I really, therefore, disliked that whole period of my life. What I found very difficult was the sort of physical punishment, for instance. It was sort of a sort of school in those days where you were beaten if you didn't learn your lines. Well, actually, I can't remember lines. I still can't remember lines. I mean, if I was locked up and said, you're going to be shot next day, you've got to learn this poem, I would be shot next day. And I still would have this problem. I have some areas of memory which just don't work the normal way.

Presenter14:41

Is that to do with the dyslexia?

Richard Rogers14:42

Yes, it is.

Presenter14:43

How badly does that affect you even now? I mean, how h in your work?

Richard Rogers14:47

Probably rather little. One of the things I always feel about having dyslexia for me is that because of all the backing I got from my parents, I never knew the word impossible, because people used to say it's impossible you'll never go to university, it's impossible you'll never be an architect, it's impossible to I've never believed it, and that's given me a certain strength, I guess.

Presenter15:05

The other thing that might have made it impossible to become an architect was that you couldn't draw.

Richard Rogers15:10

No, I in fact the sort of schools I went to sort of frowned on people who could draw. It was sort of done only by scissors. I think the schools had no idea. I remember very well when I was sixteen that I was went to see a a specialist in placing people uh for work and he and he he talked to me and he said, Well, you know what you should what I suggest you should do is to become a policeman in South Africa. And I always thought that was a very intriguing situation because actually I'm a pacifist.

Presenter15:33

So you were a pacifist, you were rebellious, you were anti-authoritarian, and you went into the army because you had to. Well, I had to.

Richard Rogers15:38

Well, I had to, yes, that was a failure too.

Richard Rogers15:42

I spent two years. I went in as a private and I have the a unique uh situation where I actually went in and left as a private and that is very very difficult in the army. I was extremely fortunate though because uh they got so muddled up in the army about what they should do with me that in the end um they sort of left left me I think in the barracks and so one day I said well look I can't go on staying here and the next post thing was to Trieste well that's happens where my parents came from so I went off to Trieste so at least I managed to go to Trieste where I had grandparents and I had family there so that was the good part of it so I spent a wonderful year at least as far as travelling was concerned.

Presenter16:16

Let's have your next record.

Richard Rogers16:18

Perhaps one of the nicest memories I have of Triess was that I was given by my grandparents there a season ticket to the opera, and I therefore have chosen Rerdi's Rigoletto, Southern Pavarotti's duets, which I think are the most stunning piece of singing.

Speaker 416:49

I believe in your glory sorrow.

Richard Rogers17:08

Even if

Speaker 417:31

What you want?

Presenter17:36

Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland singing Ail Sal del Anima from Verdi's Rigoletto, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Richard Bonning.

Presenter17:46

When came the moment then, Richard Rogers, when you thought, I know, I'll be an architect?

Richard Rogers17:50

It was in fact when I was in Trieste I came in contact with Anesta Rogers who was this very unusual, wonderful teacher, publisher and architect. And I decided I know what I can do. I can try to be an architect. I was very interested in both in the arts and in the sense in the science. My father's doctor and most of my family comes from the medical side or from the engineering, architectural side. So in a sense it was probably a logical thing for me to do. So that's when I decided I would try.

Presenter18:17

So you got yourself into the AA, the Architectural Association School of Architecture. How soon was it before you began to shine? How soon was it before your tutors knew they had an unusual talent on their hands?

Richard Rogers18:28

I don't know they ever did. I had a lot of problems with it. I really had a lot of problems with the AA. It wasn't really until the fifth year. Suddenly in the fifth year things dropped into place. I didn't never understand how these things are. Suddenly in the fifth year I managed to get a year prize and that got me to Yale and so on. And there I began to get better, but also again I came in contact with some very great friends like Norman Foster, who became my partner, and I learnt with them and I slowly speeded up I suppose. And by the time I left Yale I began to know where I was going.

Presenter18:53

Let me ask you an impossible question. Your own work apart, whi which modern building do you most admire in the world?

Richard Rogers19:00

There's a wonderful house in Paris called the Maison de Ver gla of glass by an architect who only appears to have built one, in my opinion, great house. He built a lot of other things, but not very interesting. Here he suddenly transcended his

Richard Rogers19:13

Modernly mediocre ability to create what I think is pest.

Presenter19:16

One

Richard Rogers19:16

One of the great buildings of the twentieth century.

Presenter19:18

How would you describe it?

Richard Rogers19:19

It's a house which is slotted into an old house. In other words, he couldn't get the whole house. So he got about three-quarters of a six-story building, so and took out sort of the bottom half and slotted in like a drawer this absolutely translucent building on the roadside. It's got glass bricks because it's not very private, and then it opens up to the glass, an amazing, beautiful green courtyard, and inside every detail is thought out of. It's the most wonderful steel staircase, but very wide, which you go up to a great big sort of triple height space. In the sense it's a Rolls-Royce, but in the most beautiful way.

Presenter19:53

Some more music

Richard Rogers19:55

I chose Gershwin.

Richard Rogers19:57

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong saying they can't take that away from me.

Richard Rogers20:02

Again, because of memories as well as enjoying it. And they're really memories of Yale, 1960-61, memories of working with Norma Foster, who was to become my first partner, and Sue Rogers, who was also my partner, as well as being my wife at that time, and working in a wonderful house where Naum Garbe, one of the great modern sculptors, great Russian constructive sculptor, had invited us to live whilst I was working at Yale, and he inspired me very much with his wonderful sort of steel and plastic constructions. And we used to play this record, and it was very warm.

Speaker 420:37

No, no, they can't take that away from me No, they can't take that away from me

Speaker 420:56

The way you save your dear The memory of all that

Richard Rogers21:03

Uh

Speaker 421:05

No

Presenter21:05

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, or Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, singing they can't take that away from me. So you were saying, Richard, that you you set up business with um Norman Foster, the architect, and with your respective wives, Sue and Wendy. What was your first significant commission?

Richard Rogers21:24

Well the first was really a h well two houses, one for a very old friend of mine called Michael Branch and another one for Sue's parents. And the one which really sort of came off was the one for Sue's parents. In fact, we started designing those two houses before we ever had Team 4. This was done really at Yale with that music as background to it. That's how I memory it very much. And of course it was tremendously exciting to sort of our first commission. And I suppose it was the first building which brought us some success and put us a little bit on a map. There was just a house.

Presenter21:55

Tell me about winning the commission for the Pompidou Centre in Paris, because you were up against hundreds of others, weren't you?

Richard Rogers22:01

Yes, there were 681 entries, though of course we we didn't know it. Like all these things, one never expects it. I was even against doing the competition. I voted against it, voted in between friends. Renzo Piano was by that time my partner. I was very worried it was going to be a monument. I also thought Vegal Devil would be built, it's going to be political and so on. Fortunately, I was wrong. And I was absolutely amazed. I mean, I remember well when Renzo was the first home

Richard Rogers22:25

to know about it, he phoned up and he said, old man, which is what he calls me, Vecchio, sit down, get a chair, sit down. He said, so you're sitting comfortably? I said, sure. He said, you know something? We've just won the competition. He was completely out of the blue.

Presenter22:38

Amazing. And how many years of your life did that take?

Richard Rogers22:41

We moved to Paris soon afterwards and we lived in Paris, which was wonderful for the next five years, and it took us five years to build.

Presenter22:48

It's an enormously successful building, as I I was saying at the beginning. Again, it's got its innards on the outside, hasn't it?

Richard Rogers22:54

Yeah.

Presenter22:54

Yeah, you probably hate that description, but

Richard Rogers22:56

No, it it is it is in the sense that instead of having dark internal corridors or lifts where you rub shoulders with people you don't know, you sort of have great views. I'm putting it a different way.

Presenter23:08

And now it it beats the Eiffel Tower in popularity.

Richard Rogers23:11

Yes it says it's got more people than Eiffel Tyre and the Louvre put together.

Presenter23:14

But it didn't guarantee you work, did it? There was a a huge lull after the success of

Richard Rogers23:18

Yes. First of all I have to say it was criticized and everybody hated it. Actually Lloyd's was much easier in that sense, but I suppose because it was the sort of the second large building. Which when we came to that, Pompey Dou was torn to pieces by all the critics. But immediately it was open, then the people poured in and then when people poured in the press changed. And they suddenly said it's all right.

Presenter23:36

But there must have been a moment when you were frightened you were going to be a one building architect.

Richard Rogers23:40

I think it was the moment when I thought nobody would enter the building. I hated it so much at first. But yes, then after that we had nowhere for two years and I was already in the States and I was teaching at Yale when we won the Lloyds competition. And that was another pretty big surprise because we'd never done a city building, we'd never done an an office building. On the other hand, we'd never done a cultural centre either before, so that's life I suppose.

Presenter24:00

Your record number six, please.

Richard Rogers24:02

Haydn's trumpet concerto, wonderful piece of music, but also because Renzo piano my

Richard Rogers24:09

I suppose that next partner, the one I did Pompey Do Center with, used to play the trumpet. And so again, it has memories and still has memories. When I go as I do every summer sailing with him, he always puts tapes on with this, and so that's that's the link.

Presenter25:17

Part of Haydn's trumpet concerto played by Maurice Andre with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Mutti.

Presenter25:25

Given a free hand, then, Richard Rogers, what would you do to London? Tell me your dreams.

Richard Rogers25:31

The most unique thing in London are the parks, the greenery, the way of living in small houses with gardens. These are all parts of the richness, but specifically the great parks and the squares. And what is very sad today is that I can't think of a single green square built I think this century I would say. Certainly no parks. So one wonders what's happened to the richness of this public realm which made London this unique city. So what I'd like to do is to see it strengthened. I did put some proposals which were shown in a very large exhibition at the Royal Academy, which suggested such things as along the embankment between let's say the houses of parliament and the city that that road should actually be put underground and that we would have the most wonderful linear park. We're already full of gardens outside the Savoy, outside Whitehall. There are sort of little gardens next to the buildings. You can't really use them because they're all cut out by roads. And then you can't get to the wonderful river, and the Thames is a great, great river. But we just can't get to it. We can't use it. So the idea was to create this sort of linear park facing the south bank, the cultural centre, and have shops and sort of an open life where people can talk and meet, which I like very much. The sadness to me again about London, and if it's negative, it's only in hope of changing things, is that London no longer has a controlling body. And so we're very much left at the hands, basically, of I'm going to say minor politicians and people who want to make money quickly. Therefore, any ideas of parks, pedestrian bridges or anything else are absolutely impossible until the government gets a new structure together, considering public needs.

Presenter27:03

Who should do it here then? Who do you think should take up these reins and say this is the vision of London and here is going to be a strategic planning authority that could oversee it and have this vision at the future?

Richard Rogers27:13

It has to be at the top level. It has to be a government decision. It has to you have to have prime ministers who are interested in it, just as you do in France. And then it starts to go all the way down.

Presenter27:23

But of course we we do have a prospective monarch who's interested in it, who makes um his views very well known. He sees nothing wrong with borrowing from the past. He he likes the idea of columns and pediments and domes, things which you find undesirable.

Richard Rogers27:37

We would both agree, I think, on the question of quality. The difference is that I think he feels that it's a question of style, and I think style has very little to do with the critical problem we have to face today. The problem is we is the public realm.

Presenter27:50

Yes, but at the same time he would see you as wanting to ignore the past and move on into the future, which in a way is what you've talked about in terms of your Pompey double centre and and the Lloyds building. And he says that if you ignore the past you lose your soul.

Richard Rogers28:03

You should never ignore the past, and I very much hope I build on the past. I just don't think I think if you want to belittle the the past, you copy it. It's only when we lost our confidence in the nineteenth century that we started to copy the past. It's it's antihistorical.

Presenter28:15

But maybe the the simple truth to day, and it may not be palatable to the architect, is that we do to day like copies of what is old, we like neo Georgian fronts.

Richard Rogers28:26

Today is different, but it's not that different. As I'm always pointing out, you know, Wren, our great beloved St. Paul's, Ren was so fed up being told that it was, you know, not too innovative, it was not the right answer, and so on, that when he got to the final version, the one which was built, he built a sort of 20-foot wall all the way around St. Paul's so that people could stop criticizing him. So this battle has gone on for ages. And when the first caveman left his cave and built his little timber hut, you can imagine everybody saying, God, you're anti-traditional. I mean, you know, it leaks, you can't paint on it, it's all these problems.

Richard Rogers28:58

Now you could argue everybody should stay in their caves. I think if we're not careful we should act sh we'll just stay still and that's impossible.

Presenter29:05

Let's have your next piece of music.

Richard Rogers29:07

The next piece is

Richard Rogers29:08

Peter Gabriel's Beaker.

Richard Rogers29:11

This is a wonderful period. I mean, globally, it's a wonderful period. Who could have imagined a year ago what's happening in the East, what's happening in South Africa, and so on.

Richard Rogers29:19

I've really chosen that because of this feeling that liberty is in the air and that we have to also continue struggling and we have to continue protesting, which is I suppose what I've been doing well a lot in this last half hour. The need to struggle against the easy s solution and the need to also realize that there are many people who are disadvantaged.

Speaker 429:43

No seventy-seven Maudy Lisa's weather fine.

Speaker 429:51

It was business as usual.

Speaker 429:56

Dim police from six on nine.

Speaker 430:02

A Peeko

Speaker 430:04

Meeto!

Presenter30:05

Because

Presenter30:09

Peter Gabriel's Biko. And how in what do you live, Richard? Can you describe your house to yourself?

Richard Rogers30:16

Yes, yes. I live in, I suppose, a late Georgian house. It's a really wonderful corner of Chelsea. I have, I suppose, taken out the inside and one could as my Ruth often says, most people buy barns and turn them into houses. We bought a house and turned it into a barn. So it's got a great sort of three story space in in it and we've modernised the whole interior.

Presenter30:37

It's two houses, not the city.

Richard Rogers30:38

It's two houses, in fact, yes.

Presenter30:40

And it's all quite open plan, there is

Richard Rogers30:42

The part that I and my wife lived in is really the c the cent the central space is open absolutely open plan. Also because I'm not a cook, but my wife is a great cook, and I love watching her cook, and the hearth is really the kitchen, and the kitchen is really the living room.

Presenter30:55

You mentioned that your wife cooks. She in fact runs what began, I think, as the works canteen, didn't she?

Richard Rogers31:00

Yes, um actually, I love good food and uh Ruth is a super cook and she started the Workscare team, which has now become recognized as one of the great restaurants in in England, I suppose. That's wonderful because that allows me to meet people in the restaurant as well. I really like I like very much being a patron. I find it rather rather nice.

Presenter31:18

Well, there'll be none of that on the island, Richard.

Presenter31:22

You have so many projects on the go. Dockland here in London, you have a project in at the moment, don't you? And you're designing the new Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Richard Rogers31:22

Do you have

Presenter31:31

Most of your work is abroad, isn't it?

Richard Rogers31:33

We do about a quarter of our work in England, a quarter on the continent, most of it in France, though we're building in Italy as well and in Germany, and a quarter in Japan, which is very interesting indeed, and about a quarter in the States. So we're spread out at the moment, which is I like that. That's nice.

Presenter31:47

Let me ask you a a final impossible question. If you can see beyond all of the things that you're creating at the moment, is there one building or one type of building or one site which you covet, which you would dearly love to create?

Presenter32:02

which you haven't been given scope for so far.

Richard Rogers32:04

No, it's not one site, but I'd love to be able to do something to make London, um, should we say, more human.

Richard Rogers32:10

And what one would I would love to see is you know formal piazzas, great green parks, all the wide variety of things that make a wonderful people's place. The greening of of Lo of London, for instance, for which it used to what it which it used to be, the creating of you know arcades, the creating of you know places where people would enjoy themselves, uh sufficient for one of the great cities in the world.

Presenter32:35

And when you talk about the people's places, do you mean the traditional people's places, the the Piccadillies and Trafalgar Squares?

Richard Rogers32:41

But without the traffic, what is interesting when you start to say those words, Marmboulage, Parliament Square, Leicester Square and so on, is that they are people's places but actually they're not their roundabouts and that is one of the most amazing things about London, that all the famous names, with possible exception of Leicester Square, which is a terrible place, or Pat's Coffin Garden is much more successful, all the famous so-called names which all the foreigners go to see are actually roundabouts.

Richard Rogers33:03

Let's have your last record.

Richard Rogers33:05

The last is recorded George Benjamin, a very young composer, a friend, who worked with Pierre Boules, again a very good friend in Paris, in Irkan, which is part of the Pompidou Centre, Music Research Centre. And there he composed this piece, partly using the actual structure of the Pompidou as musical instrument and using a computer to compose it. He also used some of the pampipes which you will hear, which one often finds in the square in front of the pompidoux. And so he's composed this piece and it's really again about the future. I'm extremely optimistic about the future. I think we have all the possibilities for the first time ever to make a wonderful world. It's a very rich world if we can only get ourselves organized and ordered. And so I see George as being part of this new generation who will do it.

Presenter34:28

Part of George Benjamin's Antara, played by the London Sinfonetta, conducted by George Benjamin.

Presenter34:34

I never asked you, actually, Richard, will you build yourself a house on this island of ours?

Richard Rogers34:39

I r would very much enjoy the the possibility of having a modern house. Now what is modern? It may be made out of s sand, by the way. I don't think you have to use steel or anything. It may be mud. We've done a lot of work on mud bricks.

Presenter34:51

So it can work.

Richard Rogers34:52

Oh, yes.

Presenter34:54

Three final choices to make now. First of all, which of those eight records is more dear to you than any of the others?

Richard Rogers35:01

I think Mozart's piano concerto, it is, you know, a wonderful all round piece and has everything in it and I suppose that's the piece that I could probably listen to the most.

Presenter35:12

and then a book to go with the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Richard Rogers35:17

I find it very difficult, in fact, to to find one book, so I'm thrown back to sort of uh what did I read? And my son Rue gave me the the Odyssey, Homer's Odyssey, and I thought well maybe as it's all about islands and travelling and it's over two thousand years old, and yet it's very, very modern, maybe that would enthrall me enough to keep me going.

Presenter35:37

And a luxury have you chosen, ma'am?

Richard Rogers35:39

Yes, I am going to ask to once more break rules. I think I couldn't exist without taking Ruth with me. I know that's not really allowed, but that's that's the way I've always had it.

Presenter35:47

It's not not really allowed. It's entirely not allowed. You can't possibly have an animate luxury, I'm sorry.

Richard Rogers35:53

That's terrible. I just said I couldn't live with that.

Presenter35:57

Can you think of nothing else that you really, really like?

Richard Rogers35:59

Well, I think it would be very, very difficult. Uh, you know, one can s I can think of wonderful paintings, you know, you know, Botticello's Prima Vera has got w got wonderful trees, women, people, life and so on. But, um, you know, the thing about sort of like Ruth is that's the other half. I mean, it's the love, it's the food, it's the thoughtfulness, it's the energy and all, yeah, and so that's I think I would have to bring her.

Presenter36:20

Well, you can't. Thank you very much, Richard Rogers, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Richard Rogers36:21

Thank you very much, Richard Rogers.

Richard Rogers36:26

Thank you very much.

Speaker 236:35

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.