The British architect Richard Rogers recently made headlines when he lambasted Prince Charles for interfering with the democratic planning process. Specifically, Lord Rogers was displeased with the prince's involvement in scuttling one of the 75-year-old architect's major commissions, Chelsea Barracks, which called for the construction of a dozen-plus glass-and-steel buildings in west London.

Frank Gehry has one, so do Jean Nouvel and Norman Foster. Renzo Piano has two. But last month, when New York’s governor scrapped a convention center expansion project, Richard Rogers—who joined Piano in electrifying Paris with the Pompidou Center during the early 1970s—remained a Pritzker Prize winner who has worked in New York City without a finished project to show for it.