denny Architectural Art & Design

The Italian-born, British architect Richard Rogers has been awarded this year's Pritzker Prize, the world's most prestigious prize in architecture. The jury cited the 73-year-old Rogers as "a champion of urban life who believes in the city as a catalyst for social change." Richard Rogers's work is immediately recognizable. Most famous perhaps is his first major work -- the Centre Pompidou in Paris -- that he designed with the Italian architect Renzo Piano. Its radical design with many of the building's functions set on the outside was extremely controversial in the early 1970s. Now it is seen as a landmark that transformed a museum from an elite monument to a place of social and cultural exchange. Rogers says he has fond memories of his time in Paris. "Clearly it was a very exciting period. It was a period of political upheaval in the 60s and it was also a period where people were looking at how to repair a city and the society. Paris gave us an opportunity to do a building, which was a very public building, which was my principle interest, but to also heal a small part of a city, which is a pretty unusual thing in your early 30s." Rogers says he did not receive any new commissions for two years after completing the Centre Pompidou and considered giving up on architecture. Since that time, though, he has established offices in Spain and Japan and received commissions from all over the world. Another major urban project that followed the Pompidou can be seen to continue ...