Architects design buildings; that's what we do, so we have to go

“Architects design buildings; that’s what we do, so we have to go with the flow; and, even though I’m still an old Leftie, global capitalism does have its good side. It’s broken down barriers — the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union — it’s raised a lot of people up economically, and for architects, it has meant that we can work around the world.” Thus spoke Richard Rogers, the visionary builder whose glass and steel creations have come to symbolize the transparency and dynamism of the modern age. His words, though steeped in the pragmatism of a craftsman, are also the reflections of a philosopher — a man who, standing amid the shifting tides of history, learned to balance idealism and adaptation, principle and progress. In his statement, we hear both the humility of one who serves the needs of society and the wisdom of one who recognizes that the world itself is his canvas.

Rogers was born in Florence in 1933, to a family forced to flee the rising tide of fascism. His early life was shaped by dislocation and change, and perhaps it was this that taught him to “go with the flow” — to find meaning not in resistance to change, but in its mastery. Trained in architecture, he rose to fame in an age when the world was redefining itself, when the Berlin Wall fell and the great divisions of the 20th century gave way to a new era of exchange and mobility. To him, architecture was not merely about buildings — it was about connection, about shaping the environments in which humanity could live freely and creatively. His quote captures the eternal tension between the dream of the artist and the realities of the age that sustains him.

The Bauhaus masters once proclaimed that form must follow function — that design should serve the needs of life itself. Rogers, standing upon their legacy, extended this principle to the global stage. The world had become one interconnected organism, and the architect, he realized, must adapt to this living flow. Where once cathedrals rose for kings and temples for gods, now skyscrapers and cultural centers rose for global citizens, reflecting a new order born not of nationalism, but of interdependence. “Global capitalism,” he admits, is a double-edged force — one that can corrupt or create — but he acknowledges its strange power to break barriers, to open borders once sealed by ideology and fear.

We might recall the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the masterpiece Rogers designed with Renzo Piano. When it was unveiled in 1977, many dismissed it as crude and industrial — its pipes and ducts exposed, its structure turned inside out. Yet in truth, it was a revolution in transparency, a temple not of stone but of motion and openness. The building embodied the very spirit Rogers later described: a world unafraid to reveal its workings, to unite art, people, and technology in a single living space. It was not merely a building — it was a manifesto, an architectural echo of a world beginning to embrace the global flow of ideas.

Still, Rogers’s reflection carries the melancholy of the idealist turned realist. He calls himself an “old Leftie,” one whose heart remained with the workers, the dreamers, the vision of a fair and just society. Yet he admits that even within the machinery of global capitalism, there are sparks of progress — millions lifted from poverty, boundaries dissolved, new collaborations born. It is a confession not of defeat, but of acceptance — the understanding that progress comes not from the denial of change, but from the wise navigation of it. The architect, after all, must build with the materials the world provides, and to reject the flow of history is to be buried beneath its tide.

There is in this truth a lesson for all who create and serve. The world, like the river, is never still. The wise do not curse the current but learn to steer within it. Rogers teaches that fidelity to one’s art does not mean rigidity; it means constancy of purpose amid transformation. The architect designs not to control the world, but to shape its movement into something habitable, human, and beautiful. And so too must we, in our own fields, learn to build upon change — not as its victims, but as its co-creators.

Consider how the Roman architects once took the Greek temple — born of rigid stone and sacred proportion — and turned it into something vast and flexible: the arch, the dome, the aqueduct. They, too, went with the flow of a new empire and built forms that could serve an ever-expanding world. So too does Rogers stand as a Roman of our own age — unafraid to see commerce and connection as the new forces shaping humanity’s shelter. He reminds us that it is not the force of change that determines our fate, but the grace with which we engage it.

Therefore, take heed, children of creation: do not shrink from the transformations of your time. Whether you are an architect of structures or of ideas, learn as Rogers did to honor your craft within the rhythm of the world. Do not lament that times have changed; rather, ask what beauty and wisdom you might bring to the world that is emerging. For the future belongs not to those who cling to the past, but to those who, like Richard Rogers, build bridges between principle and progress, vision and reality, and in doing so, help humanity dwell more nobly within the vast and changing architecture of existence.