Richard Rogers Quotes

Cities are about juxtaposition. In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like. In Bordeaux, we built law courts right next door to what is effectively a listed historic building, and that makes it exciting.

Boston has a lot of European qualities to it, and one of them is the charm of its above-ground trollies.

This is Port of Spain to me, a city ideal in its commercial and human proportions, where a citizen is a walker and not a pedestrian, and this is how Athens may have been before it became a cultural echo.

Old San Francisco - the one so many nostalgics yearn for - had buildings that related well to each other.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everything in the past is great and everything modern is terrible. But I do think cities should be a mix of old things and new things.

There is little in the architecture of a city that is more beautifully designed than a tree.

You cannot separate the buildings out from the infrastructure of cites and the mobility of transit.

In 1964, when we first arrived in New York City, I remember vividly seeing the skyline of Manhattan, and our first proposal of 1964 was to wrap two lower Manhattan buildings. We never got permission.

There's something very special about seeing history so clearly in front of you through that architecture that you just don't get in the U.S. If I was asked to choose where I'd most like to live, I would always choose London.

London is one of the most civilised places in the world for the procedure of making architecture and urban design.

I see my buildings as pieces of cities, and in my designs I try to make them into responsible and contributing citizens.

I was brought up in Florence, a beautiful medieval town whose rhythm is completely in antiquity.

Elevated locations imply elevated purposes, even in American cities departing as radically as Los Angeles does from the traditional planning patterns of the Eastern Seaboard.

Without a shadow of doubt, Trafalgar Square has to be one of the most crap urban public spaces in the world.

It's a weird city because the uglier the weather, the more beautiful the city. And the uglier the buildings, the more coherent the city.

Paris enjoys a high reputation for the style of its public edifices, and, while there is a very great deal to condemn, compared with other capitals, I think it is entitled to a distinguished place in this particular.

'Clothespin' was the first city monument on a large scale that could compete with the architecture around it.

I've never looked at a suburban building as being a minor building and an urban building as being a major building.

I think the city is the strongest social memory organ of humanity.

One thing about Los Angeles is it feels like it's not new. It feels like it's already been built, and it's deteriorating, except for the places they're trying to make nicer. But in general, you drive all through the city, and the city feels like it was new a long time ago.

Most cities are eclectic. There's a bit of medieval, Georgian, some Victorian and some 20th century. That's fine. Bath is different because it was built within 100 years or less. It has a homogeneity.

Certain parts are bad in every city, but Chicago is beautiful.

It's such a great city, visually. You can't get that kind of look in Canada that you can get in Boston: the old-brick historical buildings, the winding streets, the old but funky neighborhoods like Southie and Somerville. You can't get that elsewhere. It's a very unique place in that way.

I really like Pietermaritzburg: it is really a course for me - really technical.

What I loved about Edinburgh was being able to walk to work through a beautiful place.