Richard Rogers

Context: Richard Rogers was born in Florence (Tuscany) in 1933 into an Anglo-Italian family. His father, William Nino Rogers (1906-1993), was the cousin of Italian architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers. His ancestors moved from Sunderland to Venice in about 1800, then settling in Trieste, Milan and Florence. In 1939 William Nino Rogers decided to come back to England. Upon moving to England, Richard Rogers went to St Johns School, Leatherhead. Rogers did not excel academically, which made him believe that he were "stupid because he could not read or memorize his school work" and as a consequence he stated that he became "very depressed". He wasn't able to read until the age of 11, and it was not until after he had his first child that he realised that he was dyslexic. After leaving St Johns School, he undertook a foundation course at Epsom School of Art (now University for the Creative Arts) before going into National Service between 1951 and 1953. He then attended the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he gained the Architectural Association's Diploma (AA Dipl) from 1954 until 1959, subsequently graduating with a master's degree (M Arch) from the Yale School of Architecture in 1962 on a Fulbright Scholarship. While studying at Yale, Rogers met fellow architecture student Norman Foster and planning student Su Brumwell.  After leaving Yale he joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York. On returning to England in 1963, he, Norman Foster and Brumwell set up architectural practice as Team 4 with Wendy Cheeseman (Brumwell later married Rogers, Cheeseman married Foster). Rogers and Foster earned a reputation for what was later termed by the media high-tech architecture.  By 1967, Team 4 had split up, but Rogers continued to collaborate with Su Rogers, along with John Young and Laurie Abbott. In early 1968 he was commissioned to design a house and studio for Humphrey Spender near Maldon, Essex, a glass cube framed with I-beams. He continued to develop his ideas of prefabrication and structural simplicity to design a Wimbledon house for his parents. This was based on ideas from his conceptual Zip-Up House, such as the use of standardized components based on refrigerator panels to make energy-efficient buildings.  Rogers subsequently joined forces with Italian architect Renzo Piano, a partnership that was to prove fruitful. His career leapt forward when he, Piano and Gianfranco Franchini won the design competition for the Pompidou Centre in July 1971, alongside a team from Ove Arup that included Irish engineer Peter Rice.  This building established Rogers's trademark of exposing most of the building's services (water, heating and ventilation ducts, and stairs) on the exterior, leaving the internal spaces uncluttered and open for visitors to the centre's art exhibitions. This style, dubbed "Bowellism" by some critics, was not universally popular at the time the centre opened in 1977, but today the Pompidou Centre is a widely admired Parisian landmark. Rogers revisited this inside-out style with his design for London's Lloyd's building, completed in 1986 - another controversial design which has since become a famous and distinctive landmark in its own right. CANNOTANSWER

Question: What year did Richard Rogers design his first building ?
Answer: In early 1968 he was commissioned to design a house and studio for Humphrey Spender near Maldon, Essex, a glass cube framed with I-beams.