Norman Foster facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
The Lord Foster of Thames Bank
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Lord Foster in 2006
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| Born |
Norman Robert Foster
1 June 1935 Reddish, Stockport, England
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| Occupation | Architect |
| Spouse(s) |
Begum Sabiha Rumani Malik
(m. 1991; div. 1995)Elena Fernández-Ferreiro López de Ochoa
(m. 1996) |
| Children | 5 |
| Awards |
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| Practice | Foster + Partners |
| Buildings |
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| Projects | American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum Duxford |
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank (born 1 June 1935), is an English builder of amazing structures. An architect is a designer who plans buildings. He is famous for modern styles made with shiny glass and strong steel. People call this style high-tech architecture. His team has created futuristic airports, giant office towers, and huge glass roofs around the world.
Foster grew up in a working-class family in England. He worked hard to earn his college degrees in Britain and the United States. Later, he started a design studio called Foster + Partners. It grew into the largest architecture business in the United Kingdom. His most famous projects include The Gherkin skyscraper in London, the giant spaceship-like ring at Apple Park, and the glass Reichstag dome in Germany. He won top honours, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is like the Nobel Prize for builders.
Contents
Early Life and School Days
Norman Foster was born in Reddish, a small area near Stockport in northern England. His family lived in Lancashire, which later became part of the County Borough of Stockport. Norman was the only child of Robert and Lilian Foster. His family was poor, so they moved to Levenshulme in the city of Manchester to find work.
Foster's father painted machines at an engineering factory called Metropolitan-Vickers in Trafford Park. Watching his father work sparked Foster's early curiosity about machines, tools, and design. His mother worked long hours at a local bakery. Because both parents worked so much, neighbours and relatives often looked after young Norman. Foster spent many quiet hours drawing and exploring books.
Growing Up in Manchester
Foster went to school at Burnage Grammar School for Boys. He was a quiet student who loved to read in his free time. When he turned 16, he finished high school and took an exam to work at Manchester Town Hall. He got a job as a junior clerk in the finance office. In 1953, he joined the Royal Air Force for his national service because he loved aeroplanes.
Foster returned to Manchester after the air force. He wanted an exciting career instead of an ordinary desk job. He applied at an office equipment shop that sold a copying machine because he dreamed of earning a good salary. Soon after, he became an assistant at a local building firm called John E. Beardshaw and Partners. A kind worker suggested that Foster practise drawing buildings to build an art collection. Foster drew realistic views and detailed construction plans. The boss was so impressed that he moved Foster into the drawing room.
Studying to be an Architect
Foster entered the School of Architecture and City Planning at the Victoria University of Manchester in 1956. He could not get a student maintenance grant, so he had to earn his own money. He worked evening jobs as an ice-cream salesman, a security guard, and a baker making crumpets. In 1959, he won a student RIBA silver medal for drawing Bourn Windmill in Cambridgeshire.
Foster finished his studies in England in 1961. He then won a special Henry Fellowship scholarship to study at the Yale School of Architecture in the United States. There, he met another talented young British student named Richard Rogers. A friendly teacher named Vincent Scully encouraged the two friends to travel across America. They took road trips to study famous buildings, which gave them fresh ideas for modern designs.
Early Career and Inventions
Foster returned to Britain in 1963 to launch a creative company called Team 4. He joined forces with Rogers, Su Brumwell, and two sisters named Georgie and Wendy Cheesman. They designed a cool glass bubble building in Cornwall called the Cockpit. The group split up in 1967, and Foster started a new firm with Wendy called Foster Associates. Foster loved teaming up with clever thinkers, including American inventor Richard Buckminster Fuller. Together, they worked on green building projects, including a theatre at St Peter's College.
Offices with Swimming Pools and Green Roofs
Foster wanted workplaces to feel bright, healthy, and happy. In 1969, his firm built an office for Fred. Olsen Lines in the London Docklands. This project placed managers and dock workers together in the same open hall. The firm next tested a fun inflatable tent office near Hemel Hempstead that housed 70 workers.
Foster's big breakthrough was the Willis Faber & Dumas headquarters in Ipswich, built in the 1970s. Foster created wide, open plan floors without interior walls. The building included a rooftop garden, a gym, and a full 25-metre swimming pool for workers. The outside walls were made of curved black glass that reflected the surrounding historic streets during the day and glowed at night. The structure was influenced by the shiny Daily Express Building that Foster had loved as a boy. It is now protected as a Grade I listed treasure.
New Ideas for Art and Flight
Foster designed the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich at the University of East Anglia. Opened in 1978, this giant museum looked like a futuristic metal shed where art could be moved around freely. In 1981, Foster was chosen to design a new airport terminal for London's Stansted Airport. Instead of putting heavy machinery on the roof, he moved all the pipes and cables underground. This let huge skylights fill the passenger hall with natural sunlight.
Foster worked with artist Brian Clarke to create huge walls of colourful stained glass for Stansted. They used modern computer-assisted design software to map the giant panels. Although airport rules prevented them from installing the glass, their plans helped introduce bright colours into modern metal buildings. Stansted Airport opened in 1991 and won the prestigious European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture award.
World Famous Landmarks
Foster became world famous for building high towers that used smart engineering. He loved letting sunlight flow through open spaces to save electric energy. His projects proved that steel frames could make cities look like scenes from the future.
The High-Tech Hong Kong Bank
In the 1980s, Foster won a competition to design the giant HSBC Main Building for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, now part of HSBC Holdings plc. It was one of the most expensive office projects ever built. Instead of hiding the steel skeleton inside concrete, Foster placed giant metal support frames on the outside. This gave 3,500 office workers unobstructed views across Victoria Harbour and the green peak of Victoria Peak. Foster admitted that his business might have run out of money if they had lost this huge job.
The Century Tower in Japan
Foster also designed the tall Century Tower in Tokyo, completed in 1991. Like the bank in Hong Kong, this Japanese office building used double-height open floors and strong exterior bracing. The smart engineering helped protect the building during earthquakes while letting daylight pour into the middle of the workspace.
The Gherkin Skyscraper in London
In the 1990s, an old market called the Baltic Exchange in London was damaged and needed replacement. Foster first suggested a giant tower called the London Millennium Tower. People thought it was too tall, so he designed a shorter, curved tower at 30 St Mary Axe. People quickly gave it the nickname "The Gherkin" because it looks like a giant pickle. Foster used the physics of natural airflow to pull fresh air through spiralling shafts, keeping the building cool with less electricity.
The Millau Viaduct Across the Clouds
In 2004, Foster finished the Millau Viaduct, which became the tallest bridge in the world. This road bridge stretches across a deep river valley in Southern France. Its tall concrete masts and steel stay cables rise high above the clouds, carrying cars smoothly through the sky. Local leaders called the bridge a true work of art.
Apple Park Spaceship Campus
Foster teamed up with Apple boss Steve Jobs to design a new headquarters in Cupertino, California. The project was named Apple Park. Foster and Jobs imagined a giant circular building surrounded by thousands of trees. Foster completed the design with Apple's team, and it opened to workers in 2017. The circular building runs entirely on clean renewable energy from solar panels on the roof.
Famous Projects Around the Globe
Foster's team has created many other beloved landmarks:
- Canary Wharf tube station, a grand underground train stop in London.
- Reichstag dome, a glass cupola in Berlin where visitors walk spiralling paths above lawmakers.
- Great Court of the British Museum, covered by a giant curved glass net ceiling.
- Hearst Tower (Manhattan), an office tower in New York rising out of an older stone building.
- Millennium Bridge, a thin footbridge across the River Thames.
- McLaren Technology Centre, a sleek curved factory in England where racing supercars are built.
- Hong Kong International Airport, a massive island airport built to handle millions of travellers.
- Bilbao Metro, a subway system in Spain featuring curved glass entrances called fosteritos.
- Carré d'Art, a bright art gallery across from an ancient Roman temple in Nîmes, France.
Family and Personal Life
Foster married architect Wendy Cheesman in 1964. They worked side by side to build their business and had four sons, including two who were adopted. Sadly, Wendy died in 1989. Foster was married to Begum Sabiha Rumani Malik from 1991 until they divorced in 1995. In 1996, he married Elena Ochoa, a psychologist and art curator from Spain. Foster is the father of five children.
Foster faced serious health problems later in life. He was diagnosed with bowel cancer, but doctors used chemotherapy to cure him. He also survived a heart attack and returned to his daily work designing buildings. Foster enjoys working alongside young architects and encourages students to invent green technologies.
Prizes and Grand Titles
Foster has won many grand honours during his career. In the 1990 Birthday Honours, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Knight Bachelor, giving him the title "Sir Norman Foster." In 1997, he joined the special Order of Merit group of British leaders. In the 1999 Birthday Honours, he joined the British peerage as a life peer, becoming Baron Foster of Thames Bank. This title let him sit as a Lord Temporal in the House of Lords.
He joined the Associate of the Royal Academy in 1983 and became a full Royal Academician in 1991. The engineering world made him an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1995. In 2017, he earned the Freedom of the City of London. Foster was awarded the prestigious Stirling Prize several times, including for the Bloomberg London building. He also won the Praemium Imperiale from Japan, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and the AIA Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects.
Related Pages
- Peter Rice
- SkyCycle (proposed transport project)
- List of works by Norman Foster
See also
In Spanish: Norman Foster para niños
Images for kids
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The official coat of arms of Lord Foster
