The architect of the Lloyds Building and the Centre Pompidou cut his teeth on this 1960s house in Wimbledon. It's fascinating

In September 2026, the National Trust announced that it had been given a new property: a suburban house, built in living memory in 1968–70, on the edge of Wimbledon Common for the parents of the celebrated architect Richard Rogers, later Lord Rogers of Riverside. Remarkably, this relatively modest building has been cited by the late Lord Rogers as a source of inspiration for some of the most famous structures he worked on in the so-called High-tech style, including the Pompidou Centre in Paris (1971–77), and the Lloyd’s Building in London. By extension, it can claim to be an ancestor of many of the leviathan commercial buildings that have come to dominate major cities across the world in the past 50 years.

No 22 Parkside was commissioned by Lord Roger’s parents, Dr Nino and Dada Rogers. Contemplating retirement, they decided to replace their existing and ‘sensible’ home, where they had lived since the 1950s, with something new designed by their son and his then wife, the architect Su Brumwell. It was one of the first independent commissions the couple received following the end of Team 4, an architectural partnership with Norman Foster and his wife, Wendy Cheesman. The brief in Wimbledon was for a building with flair that could occupy this narrow site and create a sense of seclusion, despite the close proximity of neighbours.

In practical terms, the new house had to be suitable for a couple in their sixties and economical both to build and to run. It also needed to include a consulting room for Dr Rogers (1906–93), who wished to continue his medical practice on a reduced scale, and a ceramics studio for Mrs Rogers (1908–98). She was an accomplished potter and contributed materially to the character of the completed design. Lastly, there needed to be space both to entertain and occasionally accommodate a wider and growing family.

From the very first, the idea was that the house should be a prototype capable of mass reproduction. That, in turn, demanded that it be a modular structure made of industrially produced components that could then be assembled on site. In all these respects, it responded to ongoing debates within the profession as reflected in the avant-garde publication of the 1960s, Archigram. One influential figure at the heart of these was the charismatic Cedric Price. According to his letterhead, Price was an ‘anti-architect’, arguing that buildings generally served to constrain and fossilise human behaviour. He proposed instead architecture that was capable of continuous adaptation. Also, provocatively, that it was temporary and should be designed with eventual demolition in view.

Such ideas resonated with a new generation of architects who saw themselves as radicals building for the future. Among them were the partners in Team 4. In their last collective project, the Reliance Controls Factory, Swindon, Wiltshire, of 1967, they created a regular and modular structure of extreme simplicity. It was ‘democratic’ in the sense that it unified an office and factory space with common facilities. Crucially, the structural elements were visible externally and the whole interior was designed to be completely flexible for the future. It was critically acclaimed when completed, but was demolished in 1991.

Another crucial source of ideas were the Case Study Houses in California, designed by a group of architects that included Craig Ellwood, Raphael Soriano and Charles and Ray Eames. Developed during the 1940s in anticipation of a massive post-war demand for housing in America, the Case Study Houses made up a selection of about 30 experimental homes assembled from a kit of industrially produced parts that could be inserted and removed from the landscape with a minimum of intervention. Most of the designs were open plan and again emphasised flexibility of use.

The garden site of No 22 Parkside is masked from the road by a low bank of earth planted with shrubs and trees. To either end of this bank are yellow gates that give access to the property and establish what might be called its livery colour. The house itself comprises two single-storey pavilions, one large and one small. Both are identically assembled from prefabricated elements on steel frames that are painted acid yellow. Between them lies a small, paved courtyard (Fig 2). This was an area suitable for development if the house ever needed to be extended.

Both pavilions are entirely glazed to the front and rear and hung with yellow blinds. These walls of glass flood the interior with natural light and also allow the approaching visitor to look right through the property. As a result, the garden, as well as the spaces and furnishings in between, become part of the façade (Fig 1). Despite the intention to use only mass-produced elements, the sliding glass panels are specially manufactured. To the sides, the frame is infilled with insulated, plastic-coated aluminium panels. There are also glass doors made from repurposed bus windows and circular ventilation openings. A heating system was set within the suspended plaster ceiling of the building.

The smaller pavilion was originally designed as a carport, a guest bedroom and ceramics workshop for Mrs Rogers, but has been reconfigured. In the future, it will include accommodation and office space. The main pavilion almost fills the full width of the plot, leaving narrow strips of ground to the sides. A sliding door to the extreme right of the entrance front is identified by a long steel handle and, to one side of it, is a small brass physician’s plaque, inscribed ‘Dr William N. Rogers’.

The interior is divided from front to back into three zones. Extending beyond the front door is a long, yellow counter that defines the first of these, a narrow space running along one side of the building. This is the kitchen area with cupboards, sinks, work surfaces and hob. Mrs Rogers was an enthusiastic cook and this arrangement allowed her to work discreetly, as well as being engaged socially with the family and guests. The kitchen counter overlooks the central zone of the pavilion (Fig 3), an open living space that includes a dining area and a nest of chairs. To each end, the glass walls connect the interior visually with the outdoors, the garden at one end and the courtyard at the other.

The third zone is defined from this living area by a line of three sliding screens in a pea green. These can either be extended to make a continuous division or slid to overlap. In the latter configuration (Fig 5), they open out nearly the whole footprint as one space. When fully extended, the screens create a consultation room to the front of the pavilion and the main bedroom to the back (Fig 4). Sandwiched between them is a spare bedroom (Fig 7), two bathrooms (Fig 8) and a laundry. The bathrooms and laundry are top lit. The aesthetic throughout is of functional simplicity, a character reinforced by the present minimal furnishings. Set above the washing machines are two small bunk beds that can be folded down to create space for children to sleep (Fig 6).

No 22 Parkside was completed just before Lord Rogers embarked on the commissions that made him internationally famous. ‘The approach used to design this building,’ he was quoted as saying in 2013, ‘inspired much of my future work, including the Centre Pompidou, designed with Renzo Piano, and Lloyd’s of London… The house is made up of prefabricated components, principally steel and glass, which can be adapted to changing requirements.’ Both for this reason, and its association with his parents, it clearly enjoyed a special place in his affections.

Dr and Mrs Rogers occupied the property until the 1990s. It then became a home for different members of the family until it was listed Grade II* in 2013. At that time, Lord Rogers explored the possibility of giving the property to the Trust but, in the end, it was briefly put on the market for £3.2 million. Then, in 2015 it was given to Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, as the residence for the students of the Richard Rogers Fellowship. There followed a wholesale restoration of the property by Lord Rogers’s former colleague Philip Gumuchdjian and landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan. Harvard’s use of the property came to an end with the pandemic and Lord Rogers died in 2021. Thereafter, the house returned to The Richard Rogers Charitable Settlement.

The gift of No 22 Parkside to the Trust follows two years of negotiations. It has come to fruition now because a sufficient endowment has been raised both from private donors and charitable trusts, including Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Sigrid Rausing Trust. There is, however, more fundraising to do and a working system for the property remains to be developed. At present, the intention is that its activities will be focused on education, a particular concern of Lord Rogers. The house is not really suitable for open access in the manner of larger Trust properties, so the present aim is to establish residences and create an environment in which young people can both use and be inspired by the building. In the future, there will also be opportunities for the public to visit.

Today, this house embodies some fascinating issues and questions. One of which is that, although No 22, Parkside may be a very important building, it was never important in the way its creators actually intended. That is to say, it was designed as a prototype for mass, suburban housing, but engendered instead a monumental, metropolitan style of architecture that has served governmental, institutional and commercial interests. Nor, indeed, has the aesthetic it embodies had much impact on domestic design; look at the properties old and new surrounding it in prosperous Wimbledon.

No less intriguing is the fact that the High-tech style was meant to be an expression of a new kind of architecture. Unlike buildings of earlier generations, which supposedly constrained development and became a burdensome inheritance, it was meant to evolve in response to changing needs. The idea of such buildings being endlessly flexible and transient, incidentally, is physically expressed in their fabric and materials, hence the problems so many face with costly maintenance.

Yet here we have a High-tech house being made permanent as heritage, the changes to it as a living building reversed in the restoration of 2015 and the whole returned to a semblance of its form as first created. In effect, what was once planned with a view to a mutable future is now becoming fossilised as a monument at a moment in its past. In this process, High-tech is now following in the inevitable footsteps of every other architectural style and becoming history. Given how that flies in the face of what was intended, it’s hard not to wonder what the younger and perhaps more idealistic Richard Rogers would have said about this. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.

Find out how to visit Parkside at the National Trust website.

This feature originally appeared in the October 21, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

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