Ever puzzled why the Pompidou Centre appears the way in which it does? A brand new exhibition in London reveals all

Richard Rogers is an undisputed occupant of the architectural corridor of fame. The now-88-year-old British-Italian architect, famend for his modernist, constructivist and high-tech designs, left an indelible mark on cities around the globe together with his buildings, which embrace the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Lloyds Constructing in London, and London’s Millennium Dome. Because the founding father of agency Rogers Stirk Harbour + Companions (now RSHP, beforehand Richard Rogers Partnership), Rogers championed a method outlined by uncovered structural components.

Now, a serious retrospective celebrating his profession is coming to London. ‘Richard Rogers: Speaking Buildings’ will likely be displaying 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 important initiatives, relationship from 1967 to 2020. ‘Every scheme is displayed and deconstructed by giant format drawings, fashions and transferring imagery, directing explicit focus to Rogers’ approach of working [and] speaking his singular imaginative and prescient,’ explains Will Gompertz, director of Sir John Soane’s.

The journey begins with the Zip-Up Home, an unbuilt idea designed for a contest for innovation in home structure. It imagined a modular, prefabricated residence free from the constraints of conventional development – concepts that may later discover tangible kind within the Rogers Home, inbuilt Wimbledon, London, in 1967. That is one other focus of ‘Speaking Buildings’: a light-weight, modernist construction created for the architect’s mother and father, and awarded Grade II* listed standing in 2013.

Naturally, the exhibition delves into Rogers’ best-known work: the Centre Pompidou in Paris, designed in collaboration with Italian architect Renzo Piano. Accomplished in 1977, the constructing revolutionised museum structure with its exuberant use of uncovered, colour-coded mechanical methods – yellow for electrical energy, inexperienced for water, blue for air-con. It stays probably the most iconic buildings of the twentieth century.

The exhibition concludes with one in every of Rogers’ last initiatives: the Drawing Gallery at Château La Coste in France. This construction, situated inside the Provence sculpture park, is an easy orthogonal rectangle – opaque apart from floor-to-ceiling glazing at each ends, which serves to direct the customer’s gaze to the panorama.

Working in parallel, the Sir John Soane’s Museum’s Foyle Area will host ‘RSHP: Dialogue and Design’, an exhibition showcasing the breadth of Rogers’ apply, together with the work of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Companions.