In the twelfth episode of the ‘Building the Future’ series, we join architect, academic and author, Robert A.M. Stern, Founding Partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, who remembers his period as a student at Yale University. At a time when the university did not have a sizable international intake, Stern recalls that Norman Foster arrived with a sudden influx of English students; “the British invasion before The Beatles”.

For the eleventh episode of the ‘Building the Future’ series, leading American architectural critic Paul Goldberger, recounts how Norman Foster seems “always to have been a presence” in the global architectural scene, and how in recent years his presence has been increasingly felt in the United States.

For the tenth episode of our ‘Building the Future’ series, we join Professor Deborah Berke, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, who has known of Norman Foster’s work throughout her professional career and first met him as a junior faculty member at Yale.

For the ninth episode of our ‘Building the Future’ series, we join leading architectural writer and critic, Jonathan Glancey. With a youthful enthusiasm for architecture, Glancey remembers first seeing Norman Foster’s work in the Architectural Review, long before ever meeting him. This opportunity came when, as an assistant editor for the same magazine, he visited Foster’s studio at Great Portland Street, London.

In the eighth episode of the ‘Building the Future’ series, leading Spanish architect and co-founder of Ecosistema Urbano, Belinda Tato, expresses her longstanding admiration for Norman Foster. Recalling her time as a student, his work became a reference point for sustainable and innovative architectural projects which reshaped the urban environment. At a time when Tato was imagining future architectures, she notes that Foster “was building them”.

In the seventh episode of our ‘Building the Future’ series, Thomas T.K. Zung, President of Buckminster Fuller, Sadao and Zung Architects, recalls meeting Norman Foster following the latter’s first encounter with Buckminster Fuller. Zung gives a poignant first-hand testimony of the close relationship he witnessed develop between the two minds.

For the sixth episode of our ‘Building the Future’ series, we are joined by Sir Peter Cook, Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and a founder of Archigram. He opens by passionately advocating for the versatility and importance of hand drawing as a tool to influence the viewer’s thought processes.

In the fifth episode of our ‘Building the Future’ series, American inventor, entrepreneur and scientist, Daniel Hillis, details his interest in rebuilding cities and processes for imagining the cities of the future.

In this episode of the ‘Building the Future’ series, acclaimed Spanish artist and sculptor, Cristina Iglesias, shares her initial responses to Norman Foster’s work around the world, before she met the man himself during their collaboration on Bloomberg’s European Headquarters in London. Iglesias considers the close relationship between art and architecture with reference to her site-specific The Ionosphere (A Place of Silent Storms); an intricate canopy for the Norman Foster Foundation, Madrid.

In the third episode of our ‘Building the Future’ series, eminent family solicitor Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia exclusively shares her personal reflections on Norman Foster and his work. On their first meeting the two “instantly connected”, with Fiona being “bowled over” that despite a busy professional life, Foster could still find the time and self-discipline to compile family photo albums.

In the first episode of our ‘Building the Future’ series, leading property developer Sir Stuart Lipton looks back over forty years to recall his first encounter with Norman Foster. The location was Great Portland Street, London, where Lipton’s first impression was of an individual “in love with architecture”; a pencil and sketchbook always to hand. This meeting was to provide the basis for many productive collaborations between the two men.