Norman Foster
was born in Manchester in 1935. After graduating from Manchester University
School of Architecture and City Planning in 1961 he won a Henry Fellowship to
Yale University, where he gained a master’s degree in Architecture. Lord Foster
is the founder and chairman of Foster + Partners. Founded in London in 1967, it
is now a worldwide practice, with project offices in more than twenty
countries. Over the past four decades the company has been responsible for a
strikingly wide range of work, from urban masterplans, public infrastructure,
airports, civic and cultural buildings, offices and workplaces to private
houses and product design. Since its inception, the practice has received more
than 600 awards and citations for excellence and has won more than 100
international and national competitions. Recent work includes Beijing Airport,
Millau Viaduct in France, the Swiss Re tower and the Great Court at the British
Museum in London and the Hearst Headquarters tower in New York. Lord Foster
received a 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the University of
Technology Petronas campus in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia.
Lord Foster became the 21st Pritzker Architecture Prize
Laureate in 1999 and was awarded the Praemium Imperiale Award for Architecture
in 2002. He has been awarded the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal
for Architecture (1994), the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture (1983), and the
Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture (1991). In 1990 he was granted
a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, and in 1999 was honoured with a life
peerage, becoming Lord Foster of Thames Bank. Lord Foster has been a member of
the Aga Khan Award for Architecture Steering Committee since 2008.
