Photo: © Steve Proeh
The British architect Norman Foster, born in Manchester in 1935, has long been one of the small elite of globally active star architects. In Germany, Foster, who is often seen as a pioneer of “high-tech” architecture, is best known for his conversion of the Reichstag building in Berlin. Now the Centre Pompidou Foster in Paris is dedicating a large-scale retrospective to him on an area of almost 2200 square metres. The show takes place in the building that was one of the first manifestations of the “high-tech” architecture Foster was committed to. In 1963, he founded the office “Team 4” in London together with Wendy Cheesman and Richard Rogers, who realised the Paris Centre together with Renzo Piano in 1977. In 1967, Foster founded his office “Foster Associates”, which was transformed into “Foster and Partners” in 1992.
From 10 May to 7 August, the show, simply titled “Norman Foster”, reviews the architect’s various creative periods. Foster’s not infrequently groundbreaking projects include the headquarters of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (Hong Kong, 1979-1986), the Carré d’Art (Nîmes, 1984-1993), Hong Kong International Airport (1992-1998) and Apple Park in Cupertino, California (2009-2017). Conceived by Norman Foster in collaboration with Foster + Partners and the Norman Foster Foundation, the show unfolds in seven themes: Nature and Urbanity, Skin and Bone, Vertical City, History and Tradition, Planning and Place, Networks and Mobilities, and Future Perspectives. Through drawings, sketches, original models, dioramas and videos, around 130 important projects in the fields of architecture and design can be discovered. A drawing gallery at the entrance displays drawings never before shown in France, sketchbooks, sketches and photographs by the architect. Works by Fernand Léger, Constantin Brancusi, Umberto Boccioni and Ai Wei Wei are presented as Foster’s sources of inspiration, as are a glider and automobiles.
A central concern in Foster’s work, it is said, is a broader understanding of the concept of the environment that includes nature and the entire biosphere. His concept of combining the use of technology with an understanding of the environment is based on the work of the American architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, with whom Foster collaborated on various projects. Foster had also been involved in the emergence of the ecological movement in the 1960s and 1970s and its development in the context of contemporary projects.
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