Norman Foster life and biography

Norman Robert Foster is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice, Foster + Partners.

Foster was raised in Manchester in a working-class family and was intrigued by design and engineering from a young age. His years observing Mancunian architecture subsequently influenced his works, and was inspired to pursue a career in Architecture after a treasurer clerk noticed his tendency to sketch and venture around Manchester to view buildings while he worked at Manchester Town Hall.

Foster managed to gain an internship at a local architects office before submitting a portfolio for a place at the University of Manchester School of Architecture. He won a place at Manchester and then won a scholarship to continue his studies at the Yale School of Architecture in the United States.

Foster returned to the United Kingdom in 1963 and set up his own practice, Team 4 before changing its name to Foster + Partners. His breakthrough building was arguably the Willis Building in Ipswich in 1975 and has since gone on to design landmark structures such as the new Wembley Stadium and 30 St Mary Axe. His buildings has made him one of Britain's most prolific architects of his generation. In 2009 Foster was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award in the Arts category.

Foster was knighted in 1990 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1997. In 1999, he was created a life peer, as Baron Foster of Thames Bank, of Reddish in the County of Greater Manchester. As a resident of Switzerland, in 2010 he stepped down from his seat in the House of Lords in order to maintain his non-domiciled status, and so be able to avoid paying UK residents' taxes on income earned abroad. Foster was also criticised by some in the Architecture world for not advocating the importance of high standards of architecture and planning in the House of Lords.Foster last gave a speech to the Lords in 2003 before his resignation in 2010.

He is the second British architect to win the Stirling Prize twice: the first for the American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in 1998, and the second for 30 St Mary Axe in 2004. In consideration of his whole portfolio, Foster was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1999. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers and winner of the Minerva Medal, the Society's highest award. Foster is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.

In Germany, Lord Foster received the Order Pour le Mérite; in Malaysia he was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, for the University of Technology Petronas. and in 2008 he was granted an honorary degree from the Dundee School of Architecture at the University of Dundee. In 2009 he received the Prince of Asturias Award in the category Arts.

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