Norman Foster

Foster left school at 16 and undertook national service with the Royal Air Force.^2,3 His parents had limited formal education and faced financial difficulties, while providing an example of sustained hard work.⁵ He worked as an assistant at John Beardshaw and Partners, helped found the architectural group Team Four, and established his own practice in 1967.^2,5

During his architectural education, Foster studied the work of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.⁵ Foster later said that, at 13, he had written and illustrated a book about curtain walling, which was subsequently found in his foundation’s archive.⁵

For IBM, Foster produced a light-filled, energy-efficient building at a fraction of the cost the company had anticipated, rather than the temporary huts its executives had envisaged.⁵ His projects include the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building, completed in 1985, and London’s Gherkin, City Hall, Millennium Bridge and Wembley Stadium.^1,2 The Independent reported that the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank building cost £5 billion.²

A design account describes the bank building’s 47-storey glass envelope as supported by prefabricated steel modules on the exterior, with groups of columns connected to exposed triangular trusses.⁵ Foster has described links between engineering, bridge design and the study of flight as part of his approach; he has also spoken of flying aircraft ranging from sailplanes and a Spitfire to a Cessna Citation.³ The Guardian described Masdar City’s seven-metre podium, which allows electric cars to travel below street level, as recalling futuristic cities depicted in the Eagle comics.³

Foster was created Lord Foster of Thames Bank in 1999 and later received the freedom of the City of London.^1,4 According to The New Yorker, Foster's emigration drew criticism; a 2010 law barred non-resident peers from sitting or voting in the House of Lords.⁴ The Independent reported that Foster’s design for a tower at the World Trade Center site was unveiled to near-universal acclaim.²

Paul Goldberger called Foster “the Mozart of Modernism.”² Foster has described his design philosophy with the phrase “quality is an attitude of mind.”⁴ Foster said he designed a wood-built cancer support centre in Manchester with the aim of making it feel less institutional.⁴

Foster + Partners designed Bloomberg’s European headquarters in the City of London, which won the 2018 Stirling Prize.⁶ The reported construction cost was £1.3 billion.⁶ The Guardian reported projected savings of 70% in water use and 40% in energy use compared with a typical office; these were projections, not measured results.⁶ The Guardian described the building as two ten-storey blocks separated by an arcade and connected by a bridge, and reported features including vacuum-flush toilets, facade openings, and a ceiling designed to provide lighting, cooling and acoustic control.⁶