Architects of Madrid: Norman Foster
During the last quarter of the twentieth century, architecture lives a large-scale media development driven by spectacular buildings that gave worldwide fame to its authors, including the British Norman Foster.
Brief biographical sketch
NORMAN FOSTER (Manchester, 1935)
Born in 1935 in a humble neighborhood of Manchester, where he studied architecture and urbanism after discarding his first vocation: pilot. After graduating from 1961, he gets the Henry scholarship with which he will travel to the United States to do the Master's degree in Architecture at Yale University. At the 32 years he founded with his then wife Wendy (also an architect) the Foster Associates studio; from there he will collaborate with Richard Buckminster Fuller during 15 years in different projects.
In 1992 the company became Sir Norman Foster & Partners, an international company in which some 1.300 people work, with which it has developed emblematic interventions, either through competitions or commissions.
Throughout his career, Foster has received the most prestigious awards in the industry, including the Pritzker (1999), the FAD (1992) and the Mies van der Rohe (1990) award. He is also an honorary doctorate from more than twenty universities around the world and, since 2009, the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.
Works
Among many others, in Hong Kong the building of the Chinese bank HSBC and the airport; in Berlin, the Reichstag building; in New York, the Hearst tower; in London the Queen's Court of the British Museum, the 30 Tower and the Wembley Stadium; the station of Dresden or the Government Palace of Buenos Aires.
In Spain, Foster builds the Palacio de Congresos de Valencia, the Portia de Burgos winery for the Faustino group, the Collserola communications tower and the Bilbao metro; works to which the design of the Repsol service stations is added.
In Madrid, Foster is building one of the Cuatro Torres Business Area skyscrapers, the current Cepsa tower, a 55-story, 248-meter-high building.
The capital is also home to the Ivorypress publishing house and bookshop, linked to the projects of its studio. And from 2016, the city is the depository of the architect's legacy, which is created by the Norman Foster Foundation in an old 1902 palace located on Monte Esquinza street.
Among its projects in development is the recovery of the Hall of Realms as a museum space attached to the campus of the Prado Museum, which will be 2.500 m2 more exhibition space and pedestrianization in the immediate vicinity of the space. It is a project in which he works with Carlos Rubio Carvajal's studio.
Gallery
