Richard Rogers: Ten Projects 1967-2020

Client: Chateau La Coste

Location: Chateau La Coste, Provence.

Year: 2023

Brief: To design an exhibition that takes visitors on a circular journey through the brain of thinker, campaigner, humanist and architect, Richard Rogers.

Contained within the lightweight, searing orange, floating volume of the Drawing Gallery, the purist embodiment of the architect’s thinking, the exhibition was designed to sensorially immerse the visitor in Richard Rogers’ DNA. At the entrance his voice fills the space, expressing his unique perspective in his own words. We painted the walls in glowing fluorescent pink, a colour synonymous with Rogers, while red carpet dematerialises the space, drawing focus to the extraordinary work on display and the breathtakingly framed views of the gallery.

Giant drawings of ten key projects take visitors across four decades, from the Zip Up House designed in 1967 all the way to the Drawing Gallery itself, completed 2020. Displayed as an on-going conversation – the unfolding evolution of one man’s ideas – they reveal his unique way of working, communicating his singular vision through the hands of many. Supporting text simultaneously narrates the path of his career while distilling the key principles that underpinned his work throughout.

3D models were displayed on fluorescent orange MDF plinths inspired by the I-beams used in the Rogers House. Moving image content was restricted to two films ‘Ethos’ and ‘Exposed’, both directed by Marina Willer, to prioritise the 2D articulation of Roger’s social, environmental and political passions and preoccupations, of which his buildings were the means of expression, but never the sole legacy.

At the far end of the gallery an orange bench, composed from the same steels that structure the gallery, has been placed by the glass, inviting visitors to sit and enjoy the long view out over the vineyard.