Historical Figures Codexery

Norman Foster

English architect and urbanist, pioneer of high-tech architecture.

Norman Foster

bigbug21 · via Wikipedia: Norman Foster · CC BY-SA 2.5

Norman Robert Foster was born in 1935 in Reddish, near Stockport, as the only child of Robert and Lilian Foster.[1] In 1956, Norman Foster commenced his architectural studies at the Victoria University of Manchester's School of Architecture and City Planning.[2]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Norman Robert Foster
Born
1 June 1935
Birthplace
Reddish, Stockport, England
Education
University of Manchester; Yale University
Practice
Foster + Partners
Significant buildings
  • Apple Park
  • 30 St Mary Axe
  • Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters
  • Wembley Stadium
  • HSBC Building
  • Reichstag building
Significant projects
American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum Duxford
Children
5

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

He left school at 16 and worked as an office junior in the treasurer's department at Manchester Town Hall.[3][4] He won a RIBA silver medal in 1959 for a measured drawing of a windmill.[2][5] In 1963 he co-founded Team 4 with Rogers, Su Brumwell, and the Cheesman sisters.[6] Foster collaborated with Richard Buckminster Fuller from 1968 to 1983 on several projects.[7]

Foster designed the HSBC Main Building in Hong Kong in the 1980s, at the time the most expensive building ever constructed.[8] In 2004, he designed the Millau Viaduct in Southern France, the tallest bridge in the world.[9] Foster has been married three times, first to Wendy Cheesman, then to Begum Sabiha Rumani Malik, and in 1996 to Elena Ochoa.[10][5] Foster's childhood was spent in Levenshulme, a Manchester suburb, where his father worked as a machine painter at the Metropolitan-Vickers works and the family experienced poverty.[1]

Following his Royal Air Force national service, Foster secured a position as an assistant at the architectural firm John E. Beardshaw and Partners.[3][11] To finance his architecture studies, which began at the Victoria University of Manchester in 1956, Foster worked various part-time jobs including as an ice-cream salesman and a night-club bouncer.[2] After earning his degree in 1961, Foster received the Henry Fellowship to study at the Yale School of Architecture, where his acquaintance with Richard Rogers began.[2][5] The Willis Faber & Dumas headquarters in Ipswich, commissioned in 1970 and finished in 1975, represented a major advancement for Foster's practice.[12]

What the cited sources add

A 1999 Guardian profile describes Foster as never much at ease in a chair, preferring to walk briskly or jog.[4] The same source notes that Foster's office is famously hard-working and that having Foster and Partners on a CV is almost a guarantee of future employment.[4] The article also reports that Foster held the record for the most expensive building with the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank headquarters.[5] A 2010 Guardian interview reports that Foster has flown 75 different aircraft, from sailplanes to a Spitfire.[13]

The same interview states that Foster commissioned a car from racing car restorers Crosthwaite & Gardiner as a 75th birthday present.[13] A 2000 BBC News article quotes Foster describing his design for the pedestrian bridge across the Thames as "a blade of light across the river".[14]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sudjic 2010; Moore, "Norman Foster: A Life in Architecture by Deyan Sudjic", The Observer, 23 May 2010; Glancey, "The Guardian Profile: Sir Norman Foster: The master builder", The Guardian, 2 January 1999; "Taller, higher, bigger, Foster", The Guardian, 24 October 2005; von Hase, "Foster's brew", The Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1999; Sudjic 2010 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Glancey, "The Guardian Profile: Sir Norman Foster: The master builder", The Guardian, 2 January 1999; von Hase, "Foster's brew", The Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1999; "Norman Foster: Building the future", BBC News, 9 May 2000; Thistlethwaite, "Architect's Levenshulme", Manchester Evening News, 30 October 2008; Glancey, "Reaching for the sky", The Independent, 6 October 1996; "Norman Foster backs campaign to save Bourn Mill", BBC News Online, 7 April 2022; Glancey, "The Guardian Profile: Sir Norman Foster: The master builder", The Guardian en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Glancey, "The Guardian Profile: Sir Norman Foster: The master builder", The Guardian, 2 January 1999; "Book review: Norman Foster: A Life in Architecture", The Scotsman, 13 June 2010; Sudjic 2010; "Lord Norman Foster Biography and Interview", achievement.org; Sudjic 2010; Sudjic 2010 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Glancey, "The Guardian Profile: Sir Norman Foster: The master builder", The Guardian, 2 January 1999. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  5. Glancey, "Reaching for the sky", The Independent, 6 October 1996. facts only, no text reused. independent.co.uk
  6. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: von Hase, "Foster's brew", The Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1999; "Norman Foster - 1999 Laureate - Biography", The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1999 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Samuel Brackett Theatre – The Project", Foster + Partners (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Treiber, "Norman Foster", E & FN Spon, 1995, p. 76 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "France shows off tallest bridge", BBC News, 14 December 2004 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Norman Foster: Man of steel", The Independent, 9 September 2006; Glancey, "The Guardian Profile: Sir Norman Foster: The master builder", The Guardian, 2 January 1999; von Hase, "Foster's brew", The Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1999; Barber, "Lord Foster: 'I'm like a hamster on a treadmill. I'm always moving, I never stop", The Daily Telegraph, 24 May 2017; von Hase, "Foster's brew", The Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1999; Glancey, "Reaching for the sky", The Independent, 6 October 1996; Glancey, "Norman Foster at 75: Norman's conquests", Th en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sudjic 2010; Sudjic 2010; Sudjic 2010; Sudjic 2010 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Norman Foster" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: How much does your building weigh, Mr. Foster? , Sternstunde Kultur, Schweizer Fernsehen, 4 December 2011.; "Norman Foster - 1999 Laureate - Biography", The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1999 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Glancey, "Norman Foster at 75: Norman's conquests", The Guardian, 29 June 2010. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  14. "Norman Foster: Building the future", BBC News, 9 May 2000. facts only, no text reused. news.bbc.co.uk

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Norman Foster (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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