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NORMAN FOSTER
 
 
 
 
  Name   Sir Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank
       
  Born   June 1, 1935
       
  Died    
       
  Nationality   England
       
  School    
       
  Official website   www.fosterandpartners.com
     
 
BIOGRAPHY        
   

Together with architects Richard Rogers, Nicholas Grimshaw, and Michael Hopkins, Norman Foster is credited with pioneering the design style known as High-Tech in Britain in the early 1970s. Although in the United States the term refers principally to an architectural style, in Britain High-Tech points to a more rigorous approach in which advanced technology is acknowledged as representing the “spirit of the age.” The aesthetics of industrial production and machine technology are celebrated and embodied in the methodology of design production. Industry is a source for both technology and imagery.

After working in the city treasurer’s office in Manchester Town Hall and serving for two years in the Royal Air Force, Foster studied at the University of Manchester (1956–61) and at Yale University (1961–62). In 1963, he formed Team 4 in London, collaborating with his wife, Wendy, and Su and Richard Rogers, whom he had met at Yale. An early commission was for a house in Cornwall for Richard Rogers’s parents-in-law, the Brumwells, and their art collection. Marcus Brumwell had been a founder of Misha Black’s design consultancy, DRU, and this connection was to lead to further commissions. The house is half buried in the contours of the site and takes full advantage of the dramatic coastal position; the bridge spanning the steep gully between road and turfed roof presages some of Foster and Roger’s later preoccupations. Another significant early work was the controversial Reliance Controls Factory (1967) at Swindon. Here, Foster’s interest in tense metal skins for buildings and Roger’s predilection for expressing structural bracing externally are anticipated. There was also a concern for civilizing working conditions, which was to become a hallmark of Foster’s commercial buildings.

Foster Associates was founded in London in 1967 and includes eight partners in addition to Norman and Wendy Foster (Loren Butt, Chubby S.Chhabra, Spencer de Gray, Roy Fleetwood, Birkin Haward, James Meller, Graham Phillips, and Mark Robertson). It has become an immensely successful practice with an international profile. Their first significant commission was the Olsen line passenger terminal and administration building (1971) in London’s Dockland. Here, Foster declared his concern of breaking down the “distinction between us and them, posh and scruffy, front office and workers’ entrance.” Throughout the early 1970s, Foster brought his commitment to a patrician elegance to a whole range of modestly scaled buildings, offices, schools, shops, and some factories.

The celebrated headquarters of the Willis Faber Dumas offices (1975) in Ipswich boasts a curved glass facade that reinforces the street boundaries and harmonizes with the urban environment. Two floors of office accommodation for 1300 people are elevated and placed between amenity and support areas above and below, including a swimming pool and gymnasium on the ground floor and a restaurant pavilion set in the landscaped garden roof. The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts (1978), built to house the Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury Collection, comprises an ingeniously adaptable structure that allows any part of the external walls and roof to be changed quickly to provide different combinations of glazed, solid, or grilled aluminum panels. A single, large, span roof covers two exhibition galleries, the School of Fine Arts, a large reception area, the university faculty club, a public restaurant, and storage facilities. The latter requiring more space, Foster designed the fan-shaped Crescent Wing, completed in 1991. This addition is introduced discretely into the landscape and does not destroy the integrity of the main building. The Renault Distribution Centre (1983) at Swindon is based on a structural module—a masted, lightweight suspended roof that repeats itself. Stansted Airport Terminal (1991) followed, with its dramatic roof structure surmounting the vast open space of the main building. Such great “neutral space envelopes,” capable of accommodating differentiated functions, are a feature of Foster’s work. While being committed to the HighTech movement, which celebrates the aesthetic of industrial production, Foster is also concerned with what he describes as design “development,” evinced in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Headquarters (1985), described as the most expensive office building ever constructed. Here, all the main elements of the building, often prefabricated off-site, result from the close collaboration of architect and manufacturers, ensuring high levels of craftsmanship and quality of detail. Stansted witnesses a similar concern for detail, with the architect designing carpets, seating, checkout desks, and retail outlets. More recent works include a contribution to Stockley Park (1984), Heathrow, Middlesex, a business park attracting international companies; the ITN Headquarters (1991); Riverside Offices and Apartments (1990), including Foster’s own apartment, both in London; and the Library (1992) at Cranfield Institute of Technology, Bedfordshire, England.

 

HILARY J.GRAINGER

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.1 (A-F).  Fitzroy Dearborn., 2004.

 
 
 
 
 
 
TIMELINE        
   

1 June 1935 Born in Manchester, England;

1953–55 Served in the Royal Air Force ;

1956–61 Attended the University of Manchester School of Architecture and Department of Town and Country Planning ;

1961–62 studied, Yale University School of Architecture ;

1962 master’s degree in architecture, Yale University School of Architecture;

1963–67 Partner, with Wendy Foster and Richard Rogers, Team 4, London ;

1964 Married 1) architect Wendy Cheeseman (died 1989): 4 children;

from 1967 partner, with Wendy Foster, Foster Associates, London;

1971–73 now Sir Norman Foster and Partners. Member, Board of Education and Visiting Examiner, Royal Institute of British Architects ;

1974 vice president, Architectural Association, London ;

1980 knighted;

from 1981 council member, Royal College of Art, London ;

1983 member, Royal Institute of British Architects; member, Royal Academy of Arts; member, Ordre des Architetes Français; member, International Academy of Architects, Sofia; associate, Académie Royal de Belgique; honorary fellow, American Institute of Architects; fellow, Society of Industrial Architects and Chartered Society of Designers; honorary member, Bund Deutscher Architekten. Royal Gold Medal, Royal Institute of British Architects ;

1991 married 2) Begum Sabiha Rumani Malik.

 
 
 
 
 
 
FURTHER READING        
   

In the catalog that accompanied the Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition in London in 1986, Sudjic provides one of the most useful contextualizations of Foster’s work. The catalog also includes a list of works and biographical details to date.

Banham, Reyner, Foster Associates, London: RIBA, 1979

Norman Foster, Architect: Selected Works 1962/84, Manchester: Whitworth Art Gallery, 1984

“Recent Works of Foster Associates,” A+U (February 1981)

Sudjic, Deyan, New Architecture: Foster, Rogers, Stirling, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1986

 

Selected Publications

Foster, Norman, “Exploring the Client’s Range of Options,” Royal Institute of British Architects (June 1970)

Foster, Norman, “Recent Work,” Architectural Design (November 1972)

Foster Associates, Architectural Design, 47/9–10 (1977)

 

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