Cities For A Small Planet
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 1995
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This year's Reith lecturer is Richard Rogers, one of the most influential British architects of our time. He has established himself and his practice at the forefront of today's architecture industry through such high-profile projects as the Pompidou Centre, the headquarters for Lloyds of London, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the Millennium Dome in London. His series of lectures is entitled 'Sustainable City' and each lecture focuses on architecture's social role and the sustainable urban development of towns and cities through social and environmental responsibility.
In his fifth and final Reith lecture, Richard Rogers compares some of the world's most sustainable cities with those of Britain and argues that we have still not grasped the economic importance of a thriving urban culture. He considers what practical steps governments, citizens, architects and planners could take in order to achieve change, and argues that equitable cities that are beautiful, safe and exciting are quite within our grasp.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures. This lecture in the series |
| 0:05.8 | Sustainable City, given by Richard Rogers, was originally broadcast in 1995. Over the past weeks, |
| 0:13.9 | I have tried to draw attention to the problems of our cities, but also to offer an alternative |
| 0:20.1 | vision of the modern city. In this lecture, I want to focus |
| 0:24.9 | on what practical steps governments and citizens architects and planners could take in order to |
| 0:30.6 | achieve the kind of changes I have been advocating. But first, let me sum up my earlier arguments. |
| 0:39.3 | I have stressed the enormity of the environmental crisis we face. |
| 0:43.9 | We can see the evidence of this all around us, |
| 0:47.2 | in congestion, in the effects of acid rain on buildings and countryside, |
| 0:51.8 | even in the difficulty many children and old people have in breathing. |
| 0:57.0 | Every survey brings more evidence that the Earth's atmosphere is warming. |
| 1:02.0 | Every year the statistics get worse on pollution, erosion, deforestation and the extinction of wildlife. And it is clear that cities are generating most of the damage. |
| 1:15.6 | Of course, specialists are unsure about exactly what impact our actions are having on the environment. |
| 1:22.6 | Will average global temperatures rise by 1 or 3% in the next century? |
| 1:28.3 | Will this mean a rise of sea level by less than a meter or more? |
| 1:33.3 | Do we face catastrophe in 50 or 500 years? |
| 1:38.3 | But I would insist that given the evidence, we have to apply what has been called the precautionary principle. |
| 1:45.9 | Where scientific doubt exists about the harm we are doing to the biosphere, |
| 1:50.1 | the benefit of that doubt should be given to the planet and its people. |
| 1:54.7 | It is grossly responsible to do anything else. |
| 1:58.9 | I have emphasised that the ecological problems that our cities face are intertwined |
| 2:04.6 | with social ones. They both have a common source. The city is a rich, multifaceted place, which |
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