Rogers studied at the Architectural Association in London (195459) and Yale University (196162).

He returned to
London to open a partnership with his then wife, Su Brumwell, along with another married couple, Wendy
Cheesman and Norman Foster, in a firm called Team 4 (196366). From 1970 to 1977 he practiced with Renzo
Piano, and together they planned the landmark Pompidou Centre. This exposed-steel structure was a tour de force
of high-tech design, with a dramatic skeletal exterior clad with tube-encased elevators and brightly coloured
ductwork. In 1977 Rogers created the Richard Rogers Partnership, a firm featuring some of the designers who
worked on the Pompidou Centre. He gained more international attention for his spectacular Lloyds of London
skyscraper (197886), a highly polished mechanistic tower in which a rectangular core surrounds a central atrium.
The rectangular component is in turn surrounded by towers containing elements such as restrooms, elevators, and
kitchens, which allow easy access for repairs or for making any future modernizations of the buildings service
functions.

The first Lloyd's building (address 12 Leadenhall Street) had been built on this site in 1928. In 1958, due to
expansion of the market, a new building was constructed across the road at 51 Lime Street (now the site of the
Willis Building). Lloyd's now occupied the Heysham Building and the Cooper Building.By the 1970s Lloyd's had
again outgrown these two buildings and proposed to extend the Cooper Building. In 1978, the corporation ran an
architectural competition which attracted designs from practices such as Foster Associates, Arup and I.M. Pei.
Lloyd's commissioned Richard Rogers to redevelop the site, and the original 1928 building on the western corner of
Lime and Leadenhall Streets was demolished to make way for the present one which was officially opened by
Queen Elizabeth II on 18 November 1986. The 1928 building's entrance at 12 Leadenhall Street was preserved and
forms a rather incongruous attachment to the 1986 structure. Demolition of the 1958 building commenced in 2004
to make way for the 26-storey Willis Building.

Pictures of Lloyds Building by Richard Rogers