Norman Robert Foster

Lord Foster of Thames Bank

I. Life and Biography

Born: June 1, 1935 (age

81), Reddish, Stockport, United

Kingdom

Business partners: Richard

Rogers, Paul Wallot, Ken

Shuttleworth and more

Spouse: Elena Ochoa Foster (m.

1996), Sabiha Rumani Malik (m.

1991–1995), Wendy

Cheesman (m. 1964–1989)

Organization founded: Foster +

Partners

Norman Robert Foster, in full Lord Norman Foster of Thames Bank, was born on June 1,

1935 in Manchester, England. He prominent British architect known for his sleek,

modern buildings made of steel and glass. Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright and

Le Corbusier are some of his influences.

Norman Foster being an avid pilot, joined the Royal Air Force from 1935-1955 but left on

1956.

Foster was trained at the Manchester University School of Architecture and City

Planning (1956–61) in England and Yale University (1961–62) in New Haven,

Connecticut. Aside from finishing his Master’s Degree in Architecture from Yale

University, he worked in partnership with Richard and Su Rogers and his wife, Wendy

Foster, in a firm called Team 4 in which they quickly gained reputation for their industrial

hi-tech designs. He also partnered with American architect Richard Buckminster Fuller.

In 1967 he established his own firm called Foster Associates (later Foster + Partners) in

London. It is a global architectural firm, with over 1250 team members assigned to

different teams, from structural and environmental engineers to architectects, buildings

80+ projects in over 50 countries, has received over 470 awards and citations, and has

won more than 86 competitions. Foster + Partners also understands that the best design

comes from a completely integrated approach from conception to completion. Over the

past four decades the practice has been responsible for a strikingly wide range of work,

from architecture, engineering, interiors, furniture design, urban master plans, research

and sustainable design.

Foster’s earliest works explored the idea of a technologically advanced “shed,” meaning

a structure surrounded by a lightweight shell or envelope. Foster’s first buildings to

receive international acclaim were the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts (1974–78) in

Norwich, England, a vast, airy glass-and-metal-paneled shed, and the Hong Kong and

Shanghai Banking Corporation headquarters (1979–86) in Hong Kong, a futuristic steel-

and-glass office building with a stepped profile.

In these commissions, he established himself as one of the world’s leaders in high-tech

design: for the latter building, for example, he had ingeniously moved elements such as

elevators to the exterior of the building, where they could be easily serviced, and thus

created open plans in the centre of the spaces. Balancing out this high-tech character,

many of Foster’s buildings, including his Hong Kong office and the Commerzbank Tower

(1991–97) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, utilized green spaces, or mini-atria, that were

designed to allow a maximum amount of natural light into the offices. In this way, Foster

created a more fluid relationship between inside and outside spaces and strove to impart

a sense of humanity into an otherwise futuristic office environment.

Foster, a veteran of the Royal Air Force and an avid pilot, also applied his preference for

open plans and natural lighting to airports such as Stansted (1981–91) outside London

and Chek Lap Kok (1992–98) in Hong Kong and to the expressively simple American Air

Museum (1987–97) at Duxford (England) airfield.

At the turn of the 21st century, Foster extended his ideas to world landmarks. He rebuilt

the Reichstag (1992–99) in Berlin after the reunification of Germany, adding a new steel-

and-glass dome that surrounds a spiral observation platform, and he encased the court

of the British Museum (1994–2000) in London under a steel-and-glass roof, creating an

enclosed urban square within this famous museum building.

II. Awards and Authorship

The recipient of over 150 awards for his work—

- including numerous honorary degrees from universities all over world,

- Henry Fellowship in Yale University (1961)

- Royal Gold Medal for Architecture (1983)

- Knighthood (1990)

- Gold Medal for the French Academy of Architecture (1991)

- Mies van de Rohe Award (1992)

- Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of Culture in France (1994)

- American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (1994)

- Stirling Przie (1998 and 2004)

- Life Peerage from the Queen’s birthday honors (1992)

- Pritzker Prize (1999),

- Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for architecture (2002),

- Aga Khan Award (2007) for his design of the Petronas University of Technology

in Malaysia

1978 

Foster Associates

RIBA Publications

1985 

Foster Associates: Six Architectural Projects 1975-1985

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

1986 

Foster, Rogers, Stirling

Thames and Hudson

   Norman Foster: Une Volonte du

Electa Moniteur

Fer1987 

Norman Foster

A+U Monograph

1988 

Norman Foster

Zanichelli

  Norman Foster

Gustavo Gilli

1989 

Hongkong Bank: The Building of Norman Foster's Masterpiece

Jonathan Cape

19 Norman Watermark

90 

Foster: Team Four/Foster Associates Buildings and Projects 1964-1973 Vol 1

Publications

  

Norman Foster: Foster Associates Buildings and Projects 1971-1978 Volume 2

Watermark Publications

1991 

Norman Foster

Birkhauser Verlag

  

Norman Foster: Foster Associates Buildings and Projects 1978-1985 Volume 3

Watermark Publications

1992 

Blueprint Extra 06: Telecommunications Tower, Barcelona

Wordsearch

  

Blueprint Extra 04: The Sackler Galleries

Wordsearch

   Norman Foster and the Architecture

Blueprint Monograph

of Flight

  Norman Foster

A&V

  

Foster Associates Recent Works - Architectural Monograph No 20

Academy Editions

  Norman Foster Sketches

Birkhauser Verlag

  

Norman Foster Sketches (edited version)

Birkhauser Verlag

1993 

The Willis Faber Dumas Building: Ipswich 1974

Phaidon Press

1994 

Blueprint Extra 11: Carre d'Art Nimes

Wordsearch

  

Norman Foster Arquitectura, urbanismo y medio ambiente

Fundacio San Benito de Alcantara

1995 

Deutsche Projekte - Sir Norman Foster and Partners

Architekturgalerie München

1996 

The Architecture of Information: Venice Biennale 1996

The British Council

  

Norman Foster: Foster Associates Buildings and Projects 1982-1989 Volume 4

Watermark Publications

1997 

Norman Foster: Selected and Current Works of Foster and Partners

Images Publishing

  Sir Norman Foster

Taschen

  

Commerzbank Frankfurt:Prototype for an Ecological High-Rise

Birkhauser Verlag

  

Norman Foster : selected and current works of Foster and Partners

Images Publishing

19Norman Foster - 30

V+K Publishing

98  Colours

1999 

Norman Foster: A Global Architecture

Thames and Hudson

  

GA Document Extra 12: Norman Foster

A.D.A. Edita Tokyo

  

Norman Foster : AV Monografias / Monographs 78

Arquitectura Viva

  

1998 Veronica Rudge Green Prize

Harvard University Graduate School of Design

2000 

On Foster...Foster On

Prestel

  Rebuilding The Reichstag

Weidenfeld Illustrated

  

The Reichstag: The Parliament Building by Norman Foster

Prestel

  

The Norman Foster Studio: Consistency Through Diversity

E and F N Spon

  

The Great Court and The British Museum

The British Museum Press

2002 

Blade of Light: The Story of the Millennium Bridge

Penguin Books

  The Treasury Project Mark Power

Photoworks

  

Norman Foster and The British Museum

Prestel

  

Architecture is About People : Norman Foster

Museum für Angewandte Kunst

  

Norman Foster : The Architects Studio

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

2003

Reichstag Graffiti

Jovis Verlag GmbH

2004

Norman Foster Works 4

Prestel

2006

30 St Mary Axe: A Tower for London

Merrell Publishers Ltd

2007

Reflections Prestel

Norman Foster works 2

Prestel

Norman Foster: Works 3

Prestel

Foster 40 Prestel

 

Philologische Bibliothek Der Freien Universitat Berlin

Prestel

Wembley Stadium: Venue of Legends

Prestel

2008

Foster Catalogue

Merrell Publishers Ltd

2009

Norman Foster Works 5

Prestel

 Ben Johnson: Foster in View

Prestel

2010

Dymaxion Car: Buckminster

Prestel

FullerNorman Foster Drawings 1958-2008

Prestel

2011

Free University of Berlin

Prestel

Beijing International Airport

Prestel

Carre d'Art Nimes

Ivorypress

The Great Court and The British Museum

Prestel

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Ivorypress

  Reichstag Prestel

2012

Wembley Stadium

Prestel

The Sage Gateshead

Stadtwandel Verlag

Hearst Tower Prestel

Millau Viaduct Prestel

How Much Does Your Building Weigh Mr. Foster?

Ivorypress

Willis Faber & Dumas

Prestel

Moving. Norman Foster On Art

Ivorypress

2013

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Prestel

AV Monograph 163-164: Norman Foster in the 21st Century

Prestel

2014

Norman Foster: Works 6

Prestel

III. Concepts, Philosophies and Styles

Norman Foster is a modernist and hi-tech architect and a pioneer among green

architects that focuses on sustainable architecture and social preservation to create

localized communities.

Norman Foster plays with scales and proportions, curved or geometric lines and

open plans. As much as possible, he makes spaces a social focus. A Foster space is

intended to be infinitely flexible. He designs buildings with all the lifts and services

outside the main body of the building so that the internal office space could be

altered at will. In more recent times, sustainability has challenged both this

fascination with materials and adaptable spaces, and Foster is at the forefront of

designing intelligent buildings.

Above all, he has been a pioneer among green architects. His headquarters for the

Commerzbank in Frankfurt, completed in 1997, was the first ecologically correct

office tower, with a central atrium that features multistory gardens that create natural

ventilation. Foster doesn't merely prove that great architects can be great designers.

He proves that they can be good citizens too. Some of his green solutions are green

power from wind and solar energy, energy saving measures, natural ventilation,

improved indoor air quality, renewal building materials and water conservation.

Foster + Partners’ philosophy is that Foster + Partners has always been guided by

a belief that the quality of our surroundings has a direct influence on the quality of

our lives, whether that is in the workplace, at home or in the public realm.”

“Architecture is an expression of values.”  philosophically spanning how architectural

design changes over time to accommodate changes in technology to how it

communicates a city’s past and present character. The conversation also touches on

widely increasing efforts toward sustainability and the pervasive human fascination

with “bigness” in architecture.

IV. Works

His noteworthy buildings of the 21st century include the courtyard enclosure for the

Smithsonian Institution’s Patent Office Building (2004–07) in Washington, D.C.,

Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport (2003–08), and London’s City

Hall (1999–2002).

1. London City Hall

As one of the most important buildings raised by Foster + Partners in the past 20

years, the London City Hall was designed with democratic principals in mind. As

a largely glass structure, the democratic ideals of transparency and accessibility

are conveyed in the building’s innovative, oval design. Intended to maximize

shading, this building uses about a quarter of the energy consumed by a

standard London office building, despite playing host to over 15,000 employees.

Completed in 2002, London City Hall is unquestionably one of the crown

achievements of Foster + Partners.

2. Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters

Foster’s first green building came long before such accolades were in any sort of

vogue, and even by today’s standards, the Willis Faber and Dumas

Headquarters building is a dramatic example of environmentally informed,

respectful design. Requiring the scale of a small office tower, but wanting to be in

keeping with its surroundings, the building is a mere three-stories that fulfills its

spatial requirements with a blot-like shape that adheres to the surrounding

Medieval street plan - “flowing to the edges of the site, like a pancake in a pan”

according to the firm’s website. Eager to subvert the tenets of modernism, Foster

created a building that was shaped by its surroundings and purposefully at odds

with the waning tendency for a historical architecture.

The building’s all-glass facade, developed with Pilkington, hangs almost

effortlessly from a clamping strip at the roof level. The panels themselves are

connected by corner patch fittings and are jointed to each other with silicon. The

highly-efficient, coated glass remains nearly black during the day and is

translucent at night.

Rich in amenities, including a pool (now closed), roof cafeteria, and roof lawn,

Foster was eager to create a sense of community in the office. While Google and

other Silicon Valley giants now advocate for corporate culture that mixes work

and play, Foster was promoting office camaraderie years before it was

fashionable. In addition to amenities, the centrally located escalators made for a

design that was open and community oriented.

3. Chek Lap Kok Airport

Foster’s own website prefaces – without pretension – that Chek Lap Kok Airport

(airport code: HKG) is one of the most ambitious construction projects of the

modern era. The island on which HKG was built was previously home to

mountainous terrain with a 100-meter peak, which has now been leveled to 7

meters above sea level, and the island’s footprint has been expanded to four

times its original size. Like a small city unto itself, the airport is expected to host

80 million passengers a year by 2040.

Pushing its building systems, baggage services and transit connections below-

grade allows for a canopy that is airy and a terminal that, on most days, is

entirely daylit. Despite its enormous size, the facility is made accessible and

legible as an airport built as a complete design on one floor, rather than

the piecemeal approach common in more typically space-starved airports that

are developed in parts.

4. 30 St. Mary Axe

The Gherkin is essentially an elongated, curved, shaft with a rounded end that is

reminiscent of a stretched egg. It is covered uniformly around the outside with glass

panels and is rounded off at the corners. It has a lens-like dome at the top that

serves as a type of observation deck.

The design of the Gherkin is heavily steeped in energy efficiency and there are a

number of building features that enhance its efficiency. There were open shafts built

in between each floor that act as ventilation for the building and they require no

energy for use. The shafts pull warm air out of the building during the summer and

use passive heat from the sun to bring heat into the building during the winter. These

open shafts also allow available sunlight to penetrate deep into the building to cut

down on light costs. It has been said that 30 St. Mary Axe uses only half of the

energy that a similarly-sized tower would use.

5. Moon Inhabitation

 Fo

ster + Partners has taken on the practical possibilities of off-earth building, by

postulating 3D-printed architecture on the moon. While Foster has always

managed to find solutions to earth-bound architectural parameters, the move to

space is without precedent both in concept and building strategy. Working with a

consortium under the leadership of the European Space Agency, the firm sought

to transcend the limitations of having to transport building materials from the

earth, by proposing lunar soil, known as regolith, as an integral component to

construction.

A base designed for four inhabitants would begin as a tubular structure, brought

from earth, from which an inflatable dome would emerge as a membranous

mound, around which regolith would be laid by a 3D-printing robot. Mixed with a

printing agent, the lunar soil would be laid in a hollow cellular-like pattern, created

by the firm and a consortium of partners, to mimic biological systems.

Designed to be located at the Shackleton Crater, near the moon’s south pole, the

base would receive near-constant daylight, which would help to regulate

temperatures. Additionally, the structure itself would protect inhabitants from

solar-radiation and the moon’s constant meteoric bombardment. A series of

cupola appendages would allow the interior to receive natural light.

The firm has created a 1.5 ton mock up of the design, using a synthetic regolith

here on earth, and has created smaller models in vacuum conditions that more

closely mirror those found on the lunar surface.

Implementing a reproducible system allows for the flexibility that contemporary

design mandates. The success and usability of such an unprecedented structure

cannot be modelled by any kind of study, but Foster+Partners averts the disaster

of fashioning a facility too small or too large, by creating one that can adapt to

changing needs.

6. Techno Nomos Table

The frame of the Nomos table is conceived as a rigid, zoomorphic skeleton. Like

the other elements in the Nomos system, the table can be adapted to satisfy

wide range of needs, at home and in the office.

V. Sources

http://www.fosterandpartners.com/

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Lord-Norman-Foster

http://www.slideshare.net/lshamchuk/norman-foster-1744920

http://www.archdaily.com/773954/7-buildings-that-show-norman-fosters-architecture-

has-always-been-ahead-of-the-curve

http://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/england/articles/the-5-most-

amazing-buildings-by-sir-norman-foster/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7800594/Norman-Foster-A-Life-in-

Architecture-by-Deyan-Sudjic-review.html

http://abduzeedo.com/architect-day-sir-norman-foster

Though the silhouette of a Foster building can be memorable, his most effective vision is

embodied in things you don't always see. A Final Thought… “The best architecture comes from a

synthesis of all the elements that separately comprise and inform the character of a building: the

structure that holds it up; the services that allow it to function; its ecology; the quality of natural light

the symbolism of the form; the relationship of the building to the skyline or the streetscape; the ways

we move through or around it. Above all, I believe that architecture is rooted in the needs of people -

material and spiritual, measurable and intangible. It must have the ability to transcend function, to

add beauty as well as value, to lift the spirits, to move us in some way.” Norman Foster