Edited by Professor Jorge Sainz, Senior Lecturer in Architectural Composition at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (ETSAM), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), the publication offers a broad overview of the contents of Norman Foster’s sketchbooks, held in the Foundation’s Archive. Appearing in 2020, the first volume, Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975 -2020, now sold-out, is a synopsis of the series and includes a selection of the complete visual output of Norman Foster, contained in Foster’s sketchbooks. Volume I · 1975 -1980, published in 2021, offers an in-depth exploration of the drawings related to the second half of the 1970s; Volume II · 1981-1985 covers the early 1980s in Norman Foster’s career; Volume III · 1986 -1990 illustrates the sketchbooks covering the second half of the 1980s and Volume IV· 1991 -1995 covers the projects by Foster in the early 1990s.

This Volume  V  · 1996–2000  of the Norman Foster Sketchbooks series closes the twentieth century, covering the five-year period of 1996–2000. The period was marked by two important milestones, both in 1999: the official opening of the new Reichstag in Berlin and Norman Foster winning the Pritzker Prize. The awarding ceremony for the latter event also took place in Berlin, in two architectural masterworks: Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Altes Museum and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s  Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery). The end of the period was flagged by the turn of the millennium, the year 2000, with two significant projects for London: a tower which was not built and a bridge that was, between the City and the new Tate Modern.

As in the earlier volumes, the structure is thematic, with the usual first part on architecture, ordered by individual projects and an additional section devoted to further schemes scarcely developed in the sketchbooks. The number of projects illustrated in this case is greater than in the previous volumes, so the second part is reduced to a single section on furniture and objects, plus the usual miscellany at the end.

The Norman Foster Sketchbooks series is a collection of Foster’s career drawings from the 1970s to the present day, through his personal sketchbooks. It is a compilation of several volumes that follows the work of Norman Foster in chronological sequence.

Get yours here.