Quotes from Richard Rogers

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.

I had lots of trouble in school as a child, and I lost confidence. Teachers thought I was stupid. I learned to read very late, when I was 11. Dyslexia wasn't recognized then, and the assumption was you were incapable of thinking.

My passion and great enjoyment for architecture, and the reason the older I get the more I enjoy it, is because I believe we - architects - can effect the quality of life of the people.

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

The gap between the rich and poor is widening fast.

The one advantage of being dyslexic is that you are never tempted to look back and idealise your childhood.

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.

In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like.

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.

When I started out, nearly every architect I knew was working in public practice; that's where the radical thinking was done. But, there's always a danger of looking back as our fathers did and saying, 'Things were better then.'

Technology cannot be an end in itself but must aim at solving long term social and ecological problems.

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.

Dyslexia, though, made me realise that people who say 'but you can't do that' aren't actually very important. I don't take 'no' too seriously.

I think greed is a critical problem - the gap between the poor and the rich. The gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent.

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

A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.

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.

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

Education in British schools isn't good enough. It's not remotely imaginative enough. It lets down too many children, excluding them from society, and, as I've often said, people who are excluded from society tend to express themselves in ways not acceptable to society.

I believe very much in a dialogue between buildings - I believe it's always been there. I think buildings have different identities and live very well next to each other. We always have the shock of the new, and that's fine. The renaissance style is totally different from the medieval, and they have a dialogue across time.

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

You have to modernise; you have to change - you can't just be traditional for the fun of being traditional.

Suburban sprawl leads to social atomisation and fragmentation and is environmentally disastrous, as carbon-intensive car journeys displace local shops and replace public transport.