Rogers wins Pritzker.

Lord Rogers of Riverside, better known as Richard Rogers, has won this year's Pritzker Prize. Rogers has been a major figure on the international architecture scene since the 1970s and the completion of the Pompidou Centre, the competition-winning design by Rogers, Renzo Piano and Ted Happold (AR May 1977).

Significant projects have flowed from the Rogers office since its formation post-Pompidou, in particular the Lloyd's of London insurance headquarters (AR October 1986), and more recently the new Madrid Airport (AR July 2006). A string of competition wins in the 1990s, including significant office buildings in the City of London, and public buildings in Bordeaux, Antwerp and Cardiff, have ensured the future of the practice, recently retitled Rogers Stirk Harbour to reflect the input of younger partners in the firm.

Apart from his influence as leader of a major international practice, Rogers has also been significant on the political scene, where he was able to pursue ideas promoted by the Architecture Foundation (which he chaired for a decade) through his more recent role as an adviser to the Mayor of London and to government.

A socialist, Rogers accepted first a knighthood and then a peerage on the (correct) grounds that people would pay more attention to arguments for good architecture if they came from someone in that position. He has rather unexpectedly arrived on the New York home-of-capitalism scene in a major way, with a series of projects, including an office at Ground Zero and the remodelling of the gigantic Jacob Javits Centre.

However, it is for the Pompidou that Rogers will be most remembered architecturally--it remains an extraordinary building, a tour de force of invention and inspiration that transformed the way we thought about Paris and indeed the European city. P. F.