Norman Foster
Norman Foster has built one of the largest architectural practices in the world. His buildings, from HSBC in Hong Kong and the Gherkin in London to the Reichstag in Berlin, unite advanced technology with light and openness.
Norman Foster was born in 1935 in Stockport near Manchester into a working-class family. He left school at sixteen, worked at Manchester Town Hall and did national service in the Royal Air Force. He then studied architecture at the University of Manchester and won a scholarship to Yale, where he met Richard Rogers. Back in England they founded the practice Team 4 in 1963 together with Wendy Cheesman, who became Foster’s wife, and Su Brumwell. In 1967 Foster founded his own practice.
Foster’s early works, such as the Willis Faber & Dumas insurance building in Ipswich with a curving glass façade and grass on the roof, and the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, showed a light, technical architecture. HSBC in Hong Kong, 1983–1986, was his international breakthrough. He built Stansted Airport, the Carré d’Art in Nîmes, Hong Kong’s airport and the glass dome of the Reichstag in Berlin. In London he built the Millennium Bridge, the Great Court of the British Museum and 30 St Mary Axe, known as the Gherkin. He designed the Millau Viaduct in France together with the engineer Michel Virlogeux.
Foster received the Pritzker Prize in 1999 and was knighted. His practice Foster + Partners has grown into one of the largest in the world, with commissions in many countries, and works on energy efficiency and sustainability. Critics have pointed to commissions for authoritarian regimes. Foster is regarded as one of the founders of high-tech architecture and one of the most influential architects of our time.