Everyone at Wimbledon in Richard Rogers’ futuristic house

Perhaps the best-known futuristic, high-tech house is the stunning Villa Arpel, designed by set designer Jacques Lagrange for Mon oncle, Jacques Tati’s unforgettable film. Among other things, it was the first to put an automated kitchen centre stage, equipped with bizarre appliances such as the egg steriliser. In fact, it was ahead of its time: today our cupboards are crammed with bulky and useless high-tech gadgets.

Mon oncle dates from 1958. Ten years later came another futuristic house, albeit a real one: it was designed by Richard Rogers for his own parents. Rogers, who passed away in 2021, was born in Florence in 1933 to an Anglo-Italian family (his grandfather, a dentist, had emigrated to Italy from England), which was then forced to ‘remigrate’ across the Channel in 1938 to escape the racial laws. Ernesto Nathan Rogers (a partner in the historic BBPR practice), an architect and theorist of Italian rationalism, was Richard’s cousin. Having moved to Wimbledon in the 1960s, Richard’s father, Nino, opened a medical practice next to which he purchased a plot of land. He gave his thirty-year-old son free rein to design a bespoke home for himself and his wife, Dada Geiringer from Trieste. At the time, Richard had already founded the Team 4 practice with Norman Foster and their respective wives: the group’s aim was to design single-storey, modular homes that were replicable and extendable, built using lightweight and innovative materials.

And so 22 Parkside came into being. The building utilised insulation panels derived from the refrigerated lorry industry, concrete and neoprene resin flooring, a load-bearing structure with steel beams, and bathrooms situated at the centre of the module with skylights that revealed the passing clouds above the bath. Additional features included fold-away beds mounted on the corridor walls for visits from grandchildren, air vents modelled on those found on ships, a door leading to the garden made from a bus window and, among the furnishings, the famous Eames armchairs. Inside, one of the first ultra-high-tech open-plan kitchens, designed for Dada, stands out: as well as creating ceramics, Rogers’s mother was an excellent cook with a penchant for experimentation. Ruth Rogers, Richard’s second wife and founder of the famous River Café – a restaurant that has left its mark on the history of London’s gastronomy – has said that she drew inspiration for many of her recipes from her mother-in-law’s culinary art. The exterior walls are almost entirely glazed, while the colours of the steel structure and the interiors range across all shades of yellow, from canary yellow to egg yolk and mustard. The house is regarded as a manifesto of modern architecture, not least because, shortly afterwards, Rogers and Renzo Piano won (from among 681 competing entries) the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris, whose colour schemes and technical solutions directly echo those of 22 Parkside, considered in every respect to be the prototype of the famous Parisian building.

Now for the news that will make Wimbledon appealing not only to tennis fans: Rogers’ grandchildren have announced the donation of the house to the National Trust, whose portfolio usually consists of classic period houses and Tudor castles set in centuries-old parks. Here, at last, is a prime example of a contemporary home, devoid of stucco, statues and monumental fireplaces.