Introduction: Norman Foster

When we talk about contemporary architects, we usually hear about Sir Norman Foster. In 2000, the BBC published an article that considered the Millennium celebrations in London as “a huge success”. London was the only European city that decided to make an architectural renovation plan to celebrate the entrance to the XIst century. The London Eye, the Millennium Bridge and the Millennium Dome in the O2 Arena, are just examples of the impact of these celebrations in London’s architecture. In 1996, the London’s Southwark Council sponsored a competition to choose the designer of a new Millennium Footbridge that would span the Thames River between the Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge. This would be the first bridge built across the Thames since the building in 1894 of the Tower Bridge. This gives us a dimension of the importance of the contest. The winning project was a suspension bridge tagged as the ‘‘blade of light’’ and that was designed by the British global firm of consulting engineers and designers Arup -directed by Ove Arup, the designer that built Sydney’s Opera House or Durham Kingsgate Bridge-, Foster and Partners, and codirected by Sir Anthony Caro, an English abstract sculptor.

The Millennium Bridge construction or known officially as the London Millennium Footsbridge, started in 1998 and was opened by Queen Elizabeth on 10 June 2000. However, when it was inaugurated Londoners nicknamed the bridge as the ‘‘Wobbly Bridge’’. The bridge had some movement problems and due to height restrictions, the suspension made that the ‘positive feedback phenomenon’, that is merely the vertical vibration generated by lateral human walking forces that affects the motion and the amplitude of vibrations, was created (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2000/millennium_bridge/happened.stm). Wind- forces could heavily affect the bridge and this was a concern for public safety. On 12 June the bridge was closed until it reopened on 22 February 2002. This generated a wide- range of comments and criticisms. However, if you go to London and you want to cross from the Globe Theatre or Tate Modern to the northern part of the city to take a tour to St Paul’s Cathedral or the City of London School, you will find Foster’s Millennium Bridge.

In a recent interview, Norman Foster said that the architecture of a city affected the quality of life of its inhabitants. The importance of architecture and infrastructure in the construction of public spaces, that is the common places where we move, makes that design affects our lives. Norman Foster was born in Manchester in 1935 in a working class family. When leaving secondary school he worked in Manchester Treasury before joining the Royal Air Force, where he was discharged. After graduating from Manchester University School of Architecture and City Planning in 1961, a school of the University of Manchester that offers BA and MA in Architecture and rated 7th in the UK, he won the Henry Fellowship to go to Yale University, where he obtained the Master’s degree in Architecture. Today’s, Yale Architecture School is directed by Robert Stern, the famous postmodern American architect. In his university times, he was interested in the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. In Yale he met his business partner Richard Rogers, the architect of the Pompidou Center, and when he returned to the UK he created an architectural practice called Team 4 with Rogers. They earned reputation for high-tech industrial design.

In 1967, Foster founded Foster and Partners, a firm based in Riverside London that now has a worldwide practice, with projects in more than twenty countries. At the beginning they had the collaboration of Richard Fuller, an American architect, and when he died Foster and Partners started to develop environmental sensitive projects. Over the past four decades the company has worked from urban masterplans, public infrastructure, airports, civic and cultural buildings, offices and workplaces to private houses and product design. Until today, they have received 470 awards and won more than 86 international and national competitions.

Foster’s work includes the largest building on the planet, Beijing Airport, the redevelopment of Dresden Railway Station, the Millau Viaduct in Aveyron, France, the Swiss Re tower a skycraper in London’s financial district, the Great Court at the British Museum in London, an entire University campus for Petronas in Malaysia, the Hearst Headquarters tower in NY, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, among a long list of other magnificent architectural works.

He became the 21st Pritzker Architecture Price Laureate, an award given annually by the Hyatt Foundation -also won in 2007 by Rogers-, the Praemium Imperiale Award of Architecture in 2002, the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, and in 1990 he was granted a Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. In 1999, he was honoured with a nobiliary title, becoming Lord Foster of Thames Bank. He is resident of Switzerland as in 1998 he bought an old chateau. The Sunday Times says he has an estimated 350m pounds fortune.

At the moment, Foster is designing Apple Campus in Cupertino, as well as the Hermitage Plaza in La Defense. Now, let’s know more about the Millennium Bridge while Foster and Partners continue developing and building quality urban designs all over the world. As they state, ‘‘the best architecture comes from a synthesis of all the elements that separately comprise and inform the character of a building’’. If you want to know the man behind architecture, you can see Norman Foster’s documentary produced by his wife.