Norman Foster
Norman Foster
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank of Reddish, OM, HonFREngis a British architect whose company, Foster + Partners, maintains an international design practice famous for high-tech architecture...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth13 December 1903
affair broad fairly flight flown huge love since thousands travel
I love flying; I love aircraft, and you could say I've had a love affair with flight since I was a child. I travel a huge amount. I use airports, and as a pilot, I've flown in and out of airports thousands of times, so really, I have a fairly broad perspective.
beginnings britain far quite university
In Britain the idea one could go from blue-collar beginnings to the university was so far out, it was quite unthinkable.
would-be impossible architect
If you weren’t an optimist, it would be impossible to be an architect.
expression architecture values
Architecture is an expression of values.
nice frustration logos
I would never wear anything with a logo. That I really find difficult. It's a frustration that I'll find a nice shirt or something and it's got 50 prints of the logo on it - why do they do this?
numbers eternity should
Our object in life should be to accumulate a great number of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eternity ...
ive-learned building something-new
Every time I've flown an aircraft, or visited a steelworks, or watched a panel-beater at work, I've learned something new that can be applied to buildings.
mobility citing building
You cannot separate the buildings out from the infrastructure of cites and the mobility of transit.
livable town
The Italians have long known what makes a livable town or city.
allowed believe couple hilarious medieval people smashing streets tons
We now think it hilarious that medieval streets were used as open sewers. Equally, our descendants will say: 'You won't believe this, but people were once allowed to hurl a couple of tons of dangerous metal around smashing into each other.'
detached dream driveway future house lawn people perhaps possible prefer presume simply understand
Surveys often show people would prefer a detached house with a lawn and driveway to an apartment. I understand this. It's not my place to presume to tell people where they can live. But perhaps that dream will simply not be possible in the future.
honourable knew level moved parents ran robert security work
The only honourable work my parents knew was blue-collar. But while my father Robert ran a pawnbroker's shop, and my mother was a waitress, I moved into a middle-class world with a level of security they never knew.
earned far jobs money pay quite salesman time took tuition university variety whatever
In Britain, the idea one could go from blue-collar beginnings to the university was so far out, it was quite unthinkable. I took a variety of jobs to pay for tuition - from ice-cream salesman to night-club bouncer. Whatever earned the most money in the least time.
design endless tip
I describe the design process as like the tip of the iceberg. What you don't see is the long haul: all the endless auditing and things like that.