THE ARCHITECT ( NORMAN FOSTER)

norman foster

philosophy

foster breaks with tradition. the key to foster's approach is that he seems always to be aspiring to an elsewhere, another world, partly that of a long-gone age - the world of industrial pioneers, the mystical and fascinating world of jules verne... a world too of contemporary futurism, space conquest, science fiction and cartoon strips, a world of suprahuman places. foster's single minded individualism is exceptional, he refuses to be lumped in with the 'high-tech' style, he recognizes no professional peers. --------- '... no detail should be considered too small' foster said, ' the ends are always social - generated by people rather than the hardware of buildings... ... since it's inception, more than thirty years ago, the studio has been driven by the pursuit of design excellence, based on a belief that our surroundings directly influence the quality of our lives, whether in the workplace, at home or in the wide variety of public spaces in between... ... we use technology, but not just for its own sake. I believe that the best architecture comes from a synthesis of all of the elements that comprise a building: the structure that holds it up, the services that allow it to work, the ecology of the building - whether it is naturally ventilated, whether you can open a window, the quality of natural light, the materials used - their mass or their lightness, the character of the spaces, the symbolism of the form, the relationship of the building to the skyline or the streetscape, and the way in which the building signals its presence in the city or the countryside. I think that holds true whether you are creating a landmark or deferring to historical setting. successful architecture addresses all these things, and many more... ...the quest for quality embraces the physical performance of buildings - how do they endure in a world subject to volatile change? - do they survive or become obsolete? - does the quality of thinking that lies behind their design anticipate needs which could not even be defined when they were created? only the test of time can tell...