«As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future that is essentially unknown» – Norman Foster

Norman Foster was born in Manchester in 1935. After graduating from Manchester University School of Architecture and City Planning in 1961 he won a Henry Fellowship to Yale University, where he gained a Master’s Degree in Architecture.

He is the founder and chairman of Foster and Partners. Founded in London in 1967, it is now a worldwide practice, with project offices in more than twenty countries. Over the past four decades the company has been responsible for a strikingly wide range of work, from urban master plans, public infrastructure, airports, civic and cultural buildings, offices and workplaces to private houses and product design.

Foster has established an international reputation with projects as diverse as the New German Parliament in the Reichstag in Berlin, Chek Lap Kok International Airport and the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in Hong Kong, Commerzbank Headquarters in Frankfurt, Willis Faber & Dumas Head Office in Ipswich, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich. Since its inception, the practice has received more than 400 awards and citations for excellence and has won numerous international and national competitions.

After having investigated Norman Foster I am quite clear about his opinion. One of the things that are clearer to normam is the importance of sustainability on their projects and it’s something that Norman puts a lot of effort and dedication into . Another thing that really surprised me about Foster is his opinion about the drawing and here I quote his words verbatim: » I need my students to create the models long before the drawing. In a three-dimensional replica you cannot fool yourself, because when you draw you make things precious, even when they are not. But when you are with the real building, the model warns you, it does not fool you. The mockup doesn’t lie».

Now I want to reflect on time in architecture from your point of view and referring to the previous quote and is that according to him we have to learn from the past. In a way, whether you are a journalist, a lawyer or a doctor, we are all working with the knowledge we inherited from the past, and what we do is ask ourselves questions and respond to changes.

Finally, I want to talk about teamwork and the truth is that the fact that creatinga team with people from different disciplines is just the opposite of the way they normally teach you to work. When you are being trained to be an architect, you design the building and then give the project to other people to follow their process. But with that approach you lose many opportunities because there is a wide range of options, because there are always many more ways to design anything.

Bibliography : https://www.pritzkerprize.com/about https://www.abc.es/cultura/cultural/abci-norman-foster-siempre-intereso-arquitectura-no-arquitectos-201705280455_noticia.html

• My reflection about the text “Quiero ser arquitecto” by Alberto Campo Baeza.

Of course, it is a book to be read before starting my degree, although reading it now doesn’t hurt either. While reading this book I have realized that this book has not pushed me to be an architect but has confirmed what I already thought. and it is that I have chosen «my career».
I have also been thinking about all the things he says and stopping to think about my past, everything fits, all those little houses that I built for my dolls, the drawings of buildings that I invented, the decoration of a room … all those things that have me led to want to do this career.