Norman Foster: A Life in Architecture

by Deyan Sudjic

Overview

Norman Foster is a phenomenon - as an architect, but also as an individual. He is responsible for a dozen or more of the most recognizable buildings of the last 30 years.

Amongst many other buildings, Norman Foster is responsible for the design of Beijing's new airport, one of the world's largest, for the Rossiya tower in Moscow, in contention to be the tallest skyscraper in Europe until the credit crunch killed it, for one of the towers at Ground Zero in Manhattan, and for a crop of new towers in London. He designed the Reichstag, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banks headquarters in London and China, the new Wembley stadium and the British Museum's new court.

Deyan Sudjic's insightful and elegantly written biography charts the remarkable life of one of the world's most influential architectural figures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468302769
Publisher:	The Overlook Press
Publication date:	09/02/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	10 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Deyan Sudjic founded the architecture magazine Blueprint in 1983. He has been Director of the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as a juror for the design of London's Aquatic Centre. Formerly design and architecture critic for the Observer, Deyan is currently director of the Design Museum in London.

Table of Contents

1 The view from the window 1

2 I could have stayed in America 55

3 How much does your building weigh? 104

4 Reinventing the skyscraper 156

5 Architecture and power 193

6 The art of the juggler 247

Acknowledgements 294

References 296

Illustration Credits 297

Index 299

Editorial Reviews

Starred Review.

Though Sudjic (The Language of Things) takes readers on an engrossing tour of Foster's life as a renowned architect, it's the exquisite attention to detail in recounting that life-particularly the childhood-that brings this book to such vibrant life. Foster came from humble means; growing up in England's Crescent Grove-"unmistakably on the wrong side of the tracks"-left a lasting impression on Foster. His working class parents "had failed in what they wanted to do with their lives," Foster believed. Following his education at Manchester, he turned down a Fulbright scholarship because he didn't think it offered the "flexibility to work" and instead pursued the Henry Fellowship, which led him to study architecture at Yale. In the United States Foster was thrilled to "reinvent himself." Sudjic, director of London's Design Museum, does a remarkable job examining influences, Buckminster Fuller among them, who "gave Foster the ambition about what architecture might be" and deftly describes the irony of Foster's fame as the architect of influential buildings like the Hong Kong Bank which, though it elevated Foster to international acclaim, came at such great expense that it did little to make him more employable. Photos.
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