Richard Rogers

“I believe very strongly, and have fought since many years ago - at least over 30 years ago - to get architecture not just within schools, but architecture talked about under history, geography, science, technology, art.”

“I remember my mother taking me to see the Picasso show in the 1940s, and I was impressed by the life and vibrancy of it all. It was a bit too avant-garde for most Londoners at the time, but since then, the city has become a centre for modern culture.”

“I love cities, I spend most of my life talking about cities. And the design of cities does have an effect on your life. You're lucky if you can see trees out of your window and you have a square nearby, or a bar, a cornershop, a surgery. Then you're living well.”

“Most buildings, whether they're Gothic cathedrals or Romanesque ones, were high tech for their time.”

“It is quite interesting that whilst there are tremendous theories, in the 1960s when IT was born, everybody was supposedly going to their cottage in the countryside to work in a virtual way.”

“Architecture is always political.”

“I cycle, which is a healthy thing for an 80-year-old to do. I rarely go further than five miles, but in those five miles I can get to 80 percent of the places I want to go.”

“If you live in a squalid environment, then of course you are going to want to get out of it, you are probably going to want to get into the country, because that's what it does.”

“Of course I know very little about architecture, and the older I get the less I know.”

“The Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea provide plenty of opportunities to walk, think and relax.”

“I don't understand why everyone has to wear black, grey and white.”

“Society has to get a grip and put a tax on carbon. Of course, there is much that flows from that, and it is a complex situation. The small details of something such as climate change are political and social, and they are a lot about fairness and how we rebalance towards a fairer society.”

“Architecture is measured against the past; you build in the future, and you try to imagine the future.”

“There is a Jewish tradition of family, too, but then not all Italian or Jewish families are close.”

“Family is everything, although I've been fortunate enough to have worked with some of the most amazing minds over the years, including Renzo Piano, John Young, Graham Stirk and Ivan Harbour.”

“My architecture tends to be legible, light and flexible. You can read it. You look at a building, and you can see how it is constructed. I put the structure outside.”

“You know, the environment is fragmenting, and the environment is, in many places, absolutely hideous!”

“Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.”

“I have a very big family, and that is my number one thing, and we go away for a month to see my cousins in Italy every year, but I need to work.”

“Architecture is about public space held by buildings.”