A new London exhibition explores the legacy of Centre Pompidou architect Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers is an undisputed occupant of the architectural hall of fame. The now-88-year-old British-Italian architect, renowned for his high-tech designs, left an indelible mark on cities around the world with his buildings, which include the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Lloyds Building in London, and London’s Millennium Dome. As the founder of firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (now RSHP, previously Richard Rogers Partnership), Rogers championed a style defined by exposed structural elements.

Now, a major retrospective celebrating his career is coming to London. ‘Richard Rogers: Talking Buildings’ will be showing at Sir John Soane’s Museum from June 18-September 21 2025. Curated by his son, Ab Rogers, the exhibition spotlights eight of Rogers’ most significant projects, dating from 1967 to 2020. ‘Each scheme is displayed and deconstructed through large format drawings, models and moving imagery, directing particular focus to Rogers’ way of working [and] communicating his singular vision,’ explains Will Gompertz, director of Sir John Soane’s.

The journey begins with the Zip-Up House, an unbuilt concept designed for a competition for innovation in domestic architecture. It imagined a modular, prefabricated home free from the constraints of traditional construction – ideas that would later find tangible form in the Rogers House, built in Wimbledon, London, in 1967. This is another focus of ‘Talking Buildings’: a lightweight, modernist structure created for the architect’s parents, and awarded Grade II* listed status in 2013.

Naturally, the exhibition delves into Rogers’ best-known work: the Centre Pompidou in Paris, designed in collaboration with Italian architect Renzo Piano. Completed in 1977, the building revolutionised museum architecture with its exuberant use of exposed, colour-coded mechanical systems – yellow for electricity, green for water, blue for air conditioning. It remains one of the most iconic buildings of the 20th century.

The exhibition concludes with one of Rogers’ final projects: the Drawing Gallery at Château La Coste in France. This structure, located within the Provence sculpture park, is a simple orthogonal rectangle – opaque except for floor-to-ceiling glazing at both ends, which serves to direct the visitor’s gaze to the landscape.

Running in parallel, the Sir John Soane’s Museum’s Foyle Space will host ‘RSHP: Dialogue and Design’, an exhibition showcasing the breadth of Rogers’ practice, including the work of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

Via the case studies outlined above, ‘Talking Buildings’ paints a portrait of an architect committed to the democratisation of architecture. Specially-commissioned films by Marina Willer explore Rogers’ reflections on his work, as well as his enduring concern with ethics and sustainability in architecture. ‘We wanted to create an experience that explored Richard’s work through the lens of activism and intellectual expression as much architecture,’ says Ab Rogers, ‘revealing him as someone who never stopped developing his social, environmental, ethical and political passions.’