Luis Fernández-Galiano   Like his admired Buckminster Fuller, Norman Foster thinks of Earth as a spaceship that travels through space taking us on board, and for whose care we are all responsible. If there is a guiding thread for fifty years of work it is precisely the desir

Norman Foster   In a different way, the most influential building of all, however, was my local library in a working class suburb of Manchester by James Jepson. In the words on the foundation stone, it was “gifted to the people of Levenshulme” in 1904 by Andrew Carn

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Under the heading ‘The ‘naïveté’ of Verdi’, Isaiah Berlin explored the difference between artists who are at peace with themselves and those in conflict with nature or society. With characteristic insight, in this text of 1968 (collected in Against t

Norman Foster   France   The stretch of Mediterranean coastline around St Jean Cap Ferrat, east of Nice, boasts some of the 20th century’s most celebrated houses – by architects including Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray and Oscar Niemeyer – the best of them fusing Modernist princi

Norman Foster   Switzerland   Chesa Futura (‘house of the future’ in Romansch) fuses state-of-the-art computer design tools with centuries-old construction techniques to create an environmentally sensitive apartment building. Although its form is novel, it is framed and clad in t

Norman Foster   Japan   Designed for a Japanese collector of modern and Buddhist art, this house was conceived as a contemporary retreat with traditional influences. The house occupies a site rich with historical associations, including a Shinto shrine and man-made caves th

Norman Foster   Singapore   Designed for a Japanese collector of modern and Buddhist art, this house was conceived as a contemporary retreat with traditional influences. The house occupies a site rich with historical associations, including a Shinto shrine and man-made caves th

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   The transformation of Trafalgar Square represents the first phase of the practice’s ‘World Squares for All’ masterplan ? the culmination of many years’ work to improve the urban environment in the heart of London, creating a more civilised setting fo

Norman Foster   Germany   In the centre of Cologne, on a site adjacent to the headquarters of the insurance company Gerling Konzern, a single complex combines apartments, offices, shops and restaurants. Aside from proposing a mixed-use program, it also provides a structure th

Norman Foster   United States   The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site is one of the most important urban planning and architectural challenges of recent times. After several months of public debate, in August 2002 a competition was called to define the masterplan for Ground

Norman Foster   Italy   The first major intervention in Milan for over 50 years, this project will transform the old industrial area in the southeast of the city into an urban center combining housing, offices, shops, restaurants and cafés with cultural facilities such as a

Norman Foster   Germany   The new masterplan for the inner city of Duisburg builds on the success of the office’s Inner Harbour redevelopment, carried out between 1991 and 2003, and will strengthen Duisburg’s transformation into a vibrant, green and sustainable city. Duisburg

Norman Foster   Sweden   Designed for the City of Stockholm, the Slussen Masterplan covers an area of Stockholm adjacent to the navigation lock between the Baltic and the freshwater Lake Mälaren. The concept for the project is to create a modern urban quarter at the heart of

Foster + Partners   China   West Kowloon Cultural District will establish a major centre for music, performing and visual arts on a harbour-front site in Hong Kong. The seventeen new cultural venues will support everything from traditional Chinese theatre to pop concerts and op

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   The grand courtyard at the heart of the British Museum was one of London’s long-lost spaces. Almost immediately after its completion in the nineteenth century, the Round Reading Room of the British Library was built at its centre and it was gradually

Foster + Partners   United Kingdom   The McLaren Group is a collection of high-tech companies involved in the design and development of Formula One cars, high-performance road cars, electronic systems and composite materials. In Woking, on the outskirts of London, the company has a Tech

Foster + Partners   Germany   The foundation of the Free University in 1948 marked the rebirth of liberal education in Berlin after the war; since then it has occupied a central role in the intellectual life of the city. Today, with more than 39,000 students, it is the largest of

Norman Foster   United States   The James H. Clark Center at Stanford University in California houses the Bio-X programme, one of the most radical experiments in scientific research in the world, and which has remodelled the landscape of science and technological research at Stanfo

Norman Foster   United States   The Smithsonian Institution occupies the former United States Patent Building, described by Walt Whitman as “the noblest of Washington buildings.” Built between 1836 and 1867 by Robert Mills, the Patent Building is the finest example of Greek Revival

Norman Foster   Malaysia   Founded at the instigation of the Malaysian government and funded by the oil company Petronas, the Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) is the region’s largest center for the study of civil, mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering. Located in

Norman Foster   United States   Founded in 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is one of the largest art museums in the United States, visited by more than one million people every year. However, in common with many such institutions, over time the scale of this audience placed a

Norman Foster   Singapore   Located within a historic civic district, on the north bank of the Singapore River and close to the Padang, the new Supreme Court takes its cue from the scale and fabric of the neighbouring civic buildings, and literally locks itself into the heart o

Norman Foster   Germany   Designed in the Florentine style, and completed in 1891 as a villa and studio for the artist Franz von Lenbach, the Lenbachhaus became Munich’s city art gallery in 1924. Over the succeeding fifty years the building was extended and adapted in two maj

Foster + Partners, Norman Foster   Spain   WITHIN THE growth strategies of Spanish companies, and in particular of Spanish wineries, it is becoming more and more important to invest in intangible assets. Over the past years there has been an increase in the number of signature wineries built

Norman Foster   France   The project for the expansion of the facilities of Château Margaux, one of the most important producers of wine in the world, included the design of a new building for the handling, mainly, of varieties of white grape. The new construction extends fr

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   The design of Bloomberg’s new European headquarters is respectful of its location in the heart of the City of London, close to the Bank of England and two of Sir Christopher Wren’s finest buildings, St Paul’s Cathedral and the church of St Stephen’s

Foster + Partners   France   Once a vital Roman port, the city of Narbonne in southern France has an impressive legacy of buildings, ancient relics and archaeological sites. The new Musée de la Romanité Narbonne, commissioned after an international competition, will become a new

Norman Foster   United States   Located on a plot close to the current Apple headquarters in Cupertino, the new campus demolishes the existing scattered constructions and offers a set of buildings which reduces the ecological footprint, situated strategically according to use, secu

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   Set in rolling hills overlooking the Tywi Valley in Carmarthenshire, the Great Glasshouse forms the centrepiece of the 230-hectare National Botanic Garden of Wales. The largest single-span glasshouse in the world, it contains more than a thousand pla

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   The Glasshouse International Centre for Music is a regional music centre of international standing, with approximately half a million visitors each year. The building forms the heart of an ambitious project to regenerate Gateshead’s river frontage an

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   Built for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, and in turn the site of the Olympic Games in 1948 and the football World Cup Final in 1966, the old Wembley Stadium was the most important sports and entertainment venue in Britain. The challenge in re

Foster + Partners, Norman Foster   United States   The new Winspear Opera House in Dallas redefines the essence of an opera house for the twenty-first century, breaking down barriers to make opera more accessible for a wider audience. Responding to the torrid Texan climate, a generous canopy surround

Foster + Partners, Norman Foster   United Arab Emirates   The historic Abu Dhabi Central Market is one of the oldest sites in the city. Inspired by the traditional architecture of the Gulf, this scheme aims to reinvent the marketplace as a contemporary mixed-use complex and give the city a new civic heart.

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   On the northern edge of the River Clyde, the SSE Hydro joins the Clyde Auditorium, the iconic concert hall also built by Foster + Partners in 1997 and known locally as ‘the armadillo’ for its recognisable shape. The SSE Hydro – Scotland’s largest pur

Norman Foster   France   Marseille’s Vieux Port is one of the grand Mediterranean ports, but over time the World Heritage-listed site has become inaccessible to pedestrians and has been cut off from the life of the city. The masterplan for its regeneration reclaims the quays

Foster + Partners   United Kingdom   In the heart of London’s financial centre, on the site of the former Baltic Exchange, the Swiss Re building at 30 St Mary Axe, rising 180 metres high, overlooks London’s profile. Its distinctive shape and circular plan on ground floor allow to open u

Norman Foster   Australia   Since the design of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the practice has continued to redefine the nature of the office tower and to explore ways in which it can respond to the context and the spirit of the city in which it stands. This thirty-one-storey

Norman Foster   United States   Hearst Tower revives the dream of William Randolph Hearst, the publishing magnate who envisaged Columbus Circle as a new media quarter in Manhattan. In 1920, Hearst commissioned the Viennese Joseph Urban to build a six-storey Art Deco block on Eighth

Foster + Partners, Norman Foster   Spain   Located on the site of the former training grounds of the Real Madrid, the Cepsa Tower is one of the tallest buildings in Spain, with 34 floors of offices and rising 250 metres high. Initially promoted by Repsol YPF, which began construction works in

Norman Foster   Malaysia   Located at the north-eastern corner of the Park, within the precincts of Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC), The Troika development combines apartments, offices, shops and restaurants within a single complex. The central district of Kuala Lumpur, in whi

Norman Foster   Canada   The Bow is the first phase of a mixed-use masterplan for the regeneration of two entire city blocks on the east side of Centre Street, a major axis through downtown Calgary. The scope and magnitude of the project offers a unique opportunity to set th

Norman Foster   United States   Following an international competition lasting for six months, the practice was appointed to design the first full-block office building on Park Avenue for 50 years. The new tower at 425 Park Avenue, which will stand alongside Modernist icons by Mies

Norman Foster   United Kingdom   The Millennium Bridge springs from a creative collaboration between architecture, art and engineering. Developed with the British sculptor Anthony Caro and Arup engineers, the commission resulted from an international competition convened in 1996 by

Norman Foster   France   Bridges are often considered to belong to the realm of the engineer rather than that of the architect. However, the architecture of infrastructure has a powerful impact on the environment, and the Millau Viaduct, designed in close collaboration with

Foster + Partners   Germany   Dresden’s main railway terminus is one of the largest and most impressive late-nineteenth-century railway stations in Europe. Built in 1898, the railway played a significant role in the city’s industrial and economic growth, linking Dresden with Berl

Foster + Partners   China   Just four years after the commission was confirmed, the world’s largest building, Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport, opened its doors. The 1.3 million square metres estimated to be used by 50 million passengers per annum were design

Norman Foster   Jordan   Queen Alia International Airport continues the practice’s explorations of the airport terminal as a building type and sets out a vision for an environmentally sensitive, regionally apt, airport architecture. Designed to serve as the main gateway to A

Norman Foster   Kuwait   Kuwait International Airport is planned to significantly increase capacity and establish a new regional air hub in the Gulf – these strategic aims will be matched by a state-of-the-art terminal building, which will provide the highest levels of comfo

Norman Foster   United States   In 2007, the British team and URS Corporation won an international design competition to build the first private spaceport in the world: the New Mexico Spaceport Authority Building. Spaceport America’s anchor tenant is Virgin Galactic, launched in 20

Norman Foster   United Arab Emirates   Through a contemporary reinterpretation of sustainable technologies and the urban planning principles that are built into traditional Arab settlements, the mission of Masdar City is to create a desert community that is carbon neutral and zero waste.

Norman Foster   India   Dharavi is one of the world’s largest slums, with more than half a million people per square kilometre – more than 10 times higher than the most densely populated area of London. Current standards of sanitation are low, with just one toilet per 1,400

Norman Foster   The Thames Hub vision is a bold new approach to future infrastructure development in Britain. It brings together rail, freight logistics, aviation, energy and its transmission, flood protection and regional development. It is unique for its scale and

Norman Foster   Foster Partners is part of a consortium set up by the European Space Agency (ESA)to explore the possibilities of 3D printing to construct lunar habitations. Addressing the challenges of transporting materials to the moon, the study is investigating t