Working it out

Recognised chiefly for his modern designs of steel and glass, and for smooth exterior contours and open, naturally-lit interiors, Norman Foster (b. 1935), a British architect, says, 'travel and the lessons from studying buildings and cities are as important to me now as they were when I was at architecture school. In that sense I am still a student.' And so, among his mentors are Buckminster Fuller, Paul Rudolph, Serge Chermayeff and Vincent Scully as well as the Bauhaus and Ulm schools of design. A motivating force in Foster's design practice is his eagerness to know and to learn: 'I was always curious about how something works, in the case of the windmill the inner workings, the cogs, how the wind power was transmitted eventually to the stones that would grind the grain. I think that that comes round to how do you find a basis for design. It’s not just how the materials work but – whether it’s a museum or a corporate entity – what are the values, what makes it tick below the surface. How can that be reflected in the architecture? How can the architecture enable it to work better?' He continues: 'And to give insights into the creative processes beneath the surface – to show that something that looks very simple has come out of studying many options.' While there is accumulated extensive knowledge of famous architects' advice for young designers, Foster's insightful and thoughful words are bound to be both inspirational and useful to a wide range of creatives. Source: Interview in The Guardian July 9, 2023.