One associates Norman Foster with elegance and finesse, which in one sense would seem to make the decision by the proprietors of Château Margaux, one of the most revered wines in the world, to retain Foster + Partners seem altogether natural, a match between a wine of great depth and an architect of immense sophistication. Yet for all that this combination of architect and client might appear almost pre-ordained, it took some time for the concept and the design to evolve into their final form.

The clients, while deeply protective of the image of the original château, which has long been a de facto trademark of the Premier Cru Château Margaux wine – an image of the façade has appeared on the labels of Château Margaux for generations – did not rule out a modern intervention into the property, and an early scheme, designed by one of Norman Foster’s colleagues, was frankly modern in a way that was consistent with so much of the work of the Foster + Partners practice. As the first new construction on the site of the château in two centuries, with a program that called for new winemaking facilities as well as research areas and event spaces, it was perhaps not surprising that the first instinct of Foster + Partners was to follow the strategy of juxtaposition by which the practice has successfully added to numerous historic buildings around the world, combining meticulous restoration of a historic core with an unashamedly modern and often conspicuously large new structure beside it...[+]