In Britain Norman Foster is perhaps best known as the brain behind the London building fondly known as The Gherkin, but this leading British architect is more famous in Valencia as the creator of the city’s impressive Palacio de Congresos.
Born in Stockport, Cheshire in 1935, Foster read architecture at the University of Manchester, then was awarded the Henry Fellowship, allowing him to study at the Yale School of Architecture in Connecticut.
In his early partnership with his late wife, Wendy Cheesman, and his equally famous colleague, Richard Rogers, Foster soon earned a reputation as a leading exponent of high-tech industrial design.
Over the years he has been associated with some of the world’s most impressive buildings: the Metro in Bilbao, HSBC Headquarters Hong Kong, Clyde Auditorium Glasgow, Millennium Bridge London, Hong Kong International Airport, Berlin’s Reichstag Dome and the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, Astana, Kazakhstan.
Throughout his career, Foster has continued to propound the virtues of high-tech architecture, while taking seriously the practical considerations of his buildings’ inhabitants. For instance, The Gherkin includes a solar heating system and the façade admits air for passive cooling, venting it as it warms.
Foster’s work has reached every part of the globe, so it is perfectly fitting that this gifted interpreter of contemporary design should be recognised in this way.
He was created a life peer in 1999 and is now better known as Baron Foster of Thames Bank. He will receive the prized Principe de Asturias Award from Prince Felipe at the end of October.
BIG
