Charles Rogers, 70; architect acclaimed for bold vision

Charles F. Rogers II was the youngest architect at his firm when he began designing what the Boston Society of Architects once dubbed "the most beautiful building in Boston."

His vision for the Wellesley Science Center, with its pseudo-industrial exterior, panels of glass, and bold lines of orange, left critics enamored with the architect's marriage of an old gothic brick building to new construction.

In 1978, the Globe's architecture critic called the center's soaring glass atrium "one of the most spectacular architectural spaces in this region."

Mr. Rogers, 70, who also designed the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan, and buildings at MIT and Vassar, died Aug. 13 at his home in Gloucester. For three years, he suffered from a progressive brain disease known as Lewy body dementia.

Colleagues at Perry Dean Rogers Partners Architects in Boston, where he worked for 40 years, remembered Mr. Rogers as a fiercely independent and gifted architect whose design presentations thrilled his clients.

"His legacy for me is really his commitment to the singular big gesture for the project," said Martha Pilgreen, a principal at Perry Dean Rogers, who worked with Mr. Rogers for almost 25 years.

Mr. Rogers was a keen listener who could pinpoint what clients wanted and explain the most sophisticated and technological design principles in layman's terms, his partners said.

"He could do that without talking down to them. He could do that without making them feel as though he was being arrogant," said Perry Dean principal Steven Foote. "He was quite a guy. He's going to be sorely missed."

David Magida, chief administrative officer at Norwich University, where Perry Dean designed a new library and created the Vermont campus's master plan, said Mr. Rogers's work "brought our facility up to a new level."

"He had this incredible ability to listen to a conversation, mull it over, and come back with ideas that made everyone in the room say, 'That's it,' " Magida said.

Colleagues described Mr. Rogers as a complex man who could be stubborn and even ornery, according to Pilgreen. "But the stubbornness is one of the reasons he got the results he got," she said.

The Wellesley Science Center he designed for Perry Dean was awarded one of the most prestigious architectural awards in America, the Harleston Parker Medal, in 1987.

Mr. Rogers was born in Middlebury, Vt., to Benjamin and Elsie (Jenney). He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture from Cornell University. A concrete outdoor sculpture he created while a student still stands on campus.

Mr. Rogers then studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau in France and spent three summers in Turkey working on the Cornell-Harvard Archeological Expedition in ancient Sardis, where he plotted and drew excavation sites.

Mr. Rogers met his second wife, Bonnie (Hyde) in 1978, in an elevator when she arrived for a job interview at Perry Dean, she said. The handsome architect made her so nervous she got off on the wrong floor, only to discover later that Mr. Rogers was her interviewer.

"I got the man but not the job," said Bonnie, who married him in 1990.

She said her husband enjoyed martinis, his collection of paint-by-number nudes from the 1940s and '50s, and his beloved cats.

When his cat Eliot had to have a leg amputated, Mr. Rogers spent a week making their home accessible for him.

"He designed a litter box that wouldn't hit the three-legged cat in the head every time he got in there," Bonnie said. "He put carpeting in the stairwell so he could dig his claws in and get up there by himself."

The couple buried 14 cats in their backyard over the years, and Mr. Rogers had a headstone made for each one.

Mr. Rogers also loved Italy, and the couple made annual trips to Venice, where they enjoyed long, luxurious meals at their favorite restaurant, Alle Testiere, she said.

Mr. Rogers would always bring to Italy a special jug to fill with the finest olive oil and bring home.

His wife recalled one trip to Florence when Mr. Rogers decided he needed to buy a mustache. He arrived that night for dinner with his college buddy, Bob Mayer, wearing the elaborate "Juan Valdez" mustache.

His friend said nothing until the end of the meal. "Since when did you grow a moustache?" Mayer asked, leaving Mr. Rogers and his wife doubled over with laughter.

Among other award-winning projects Mr. Rogers worked on are the Beinecke Student Activities Village and the William M. Bristol Jr. Pool at Hamilton College in New York; the Seeley Mudd Chemistry Building at Vassar, and the Waidner-Spahr Library at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

Among his most recent projects are the new Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham and the renovation of Alvar Aalto's Baker House dorm at MIT.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Rogers leaves his former spouse, Marga, and their two children: a son, Charles III of Philadelphia, and a daughter, Mara, of San Francisco.

A service will be held at 11 a.m. Sept. 8 at the Independent Christian Church, Unitarian Universalist, in Gloucester. Burial will be private.