the pompidou centre's facade with its confusion of pipes, ducts and external corridors was revolutionary — the work of renzo piano and a young british architect called richard rogers. the building itself is inside out. in other words, what you usually see inside, which are those long, dank, dark corridors which you have in big institutional buildings — and it is an institution, theoretically, though i dislike the word, it's an institution — there's long, dark corridors on the outside. they're actually the fun. the inside out design made the interior airy and open and equally important was the public space outside. this was �*60s egalitarianism, inspired by the piazzas of his home town, florence in italy. his parents had arrived in britain in the �*30s. the young richard rogers struggled at school, he was dyslexic, but he got into art college and then trained as an architect, where he met another future superstar of british architecture, norman foster.