Since 2010, Yale School of Architecture alumnus Norman Foster and his family have been funding a visiting professorship in his name, thus enabling the Yale School of Architecture (New Haven, USA) to annually invite distinguished international architects to teach in the design studio.

The 2020 Norman R. Foster Visiting Professorship at Yale University was awarded to Professor Hitoshi Abe, Architect, Professor and former Chair in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the School of Arts and Architecture, Chair in the Study of Contemporary Japan, and Director of the UCLA Paul I. Throughout the year, he will be teaching the course Advanced Design Studio: Workhouse in collaboration with Critic Nicholas McDermott.

Visiting professors play an integral role in the education of tomorrow’s architects at Yale University. Each term, the foremost architects and designers lead advanced studios to expose students to the latest crosscurrents of ideas and ideologies in contemporary architectural practice.