Lord Norman Foster

In 1963, back in London, he co-founded the firm Team 4 with Richard Rogers, the other great English architect of the 20th century.

Together, they laid the foundations of high-tech architecture, a movement of which they are the main representatives today.

Then in 1967, Foster founded his own firm, Foster + Partners. Over the past four decades, this London firm of international standing has been behind the design of a striking number of projects, from urban master plans, public infrastructure, airports, civic and cultural buildings to skyscrapers and individual houses. 

Norman Foster is world renowned and has personally won over 300 awards and first prizes. In particular, he was awarded gold medals by RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) in 1983, the French Academy of Architecture in 1991 and the American Institute of Architects in 1994. In 1990 he was knighted, then in 1997 awarded the Order of Merit, and finally created a peer of the United Kingdom, with the title of Baron Foster of Thames Bank, of Reddish in the County of Greater Manchester in 1999.

His more recent and emblematic achievements include, besides the Millau Viaduct, The Great Court at the British Museum in London (2000), the Millennium Bridge in London (2001), the Carré d'Art in Nîmes (1993) and the Regional Museum of Ancient Rome in Narbonne (ongoing). Norman Foster is to date the only architect in the world to have won two Emporis Skyscraper Awards – rewarding the most outstanding skyscraper of the year – for 30 St Mary Axe in London (2004, a.k.a. "The Gherkin") and the Hearst Tower in New York (2006).