The firm now employs over 1,000 people working on projects in more than 25 countries. Over the past decades, there have been an incredible number of these projects, and many of them have been awarded a variety of awards - 463 in total, and Foster himself received the Life Peerage, the RIBA Gold Medal and the Pritzker Prize, among other distinctions.
At the end of 1967, Team 4, in which Norman Foster and Richard Rogers collaborated with their then spouses, collapsed, and both prominent architects began working independently to meet in the 1990s in the House of Lords of the British Parliament.
At 72, Foster has no plans to retire. After the recent restructuring of his studio, the architect, according to him, has received much more time to engage in direct design, he is now "freer from a creative point of view." And the rich rhythm of life with constant air travel from one country to another only gives him vigor.
His peers recall that before he came to the British architectural scene there was a clear division into "commercial architects" who built many, but not very interesting, and "architects" who were more interested in architecture with a capital letter. Foster managed to combine both sides of the profession: the success of the “entrepreneur” who implements his projects, and the innovator in the field of shaping and technology. There is a version that he received an order for the design of his famous building "Hongkong & Shanghai Bank" in Hong Kong, convincing developers that they simply do not have time to interview any other architect if they want to get a finished project by their appointed deadline.
For the fortieth anniversary of his firm, Foster has published two books dedicated to the work of the workshop - “Foster. 40 themes "and" Foster. 40 projects ". They attempt to define his contribution to modern architecture, to outline the main motives of his work. These included glazed courtyards, winter gardens in high-rise buildings, curved lines, diagonal bars, transparency, and, most importantly, resource conservation. It is the principles of "green" architecture that unite absolutely all of his projects - from museums to railway stations, from new cities to secondary school buildings. This is followed by the use of the latest building technologies, constant experimentation with materials and structures. But the vitality of Foster's buildings is ensured by the rigid logic and rationalism of each project. This is precisely the reason for the seeming simplicity of its revolutionary buildings from many points of view. And even if there are not so many really outstanding buildings among the huge number of projects that come out every year from his workshop, then even those running meters of offices that make up the majority are undoubtedly much better than the standard "commercial" or "corporate" architecture.
Among the last of the works presented by Foster, eastern directions predominate. The new Abu Dhabi Plaza complex, consisting of shops, cinemas, hotels and winter gardens in combination with high-rise residential buildings and office buildings, will appear in the new capital of Kazakhstan, Astana.
The UAE pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai International Exhibition, an octahedral volume in an elegant carved shell, will be one of the largest at the EXPO with a height of 20 m and an area of exhibition space of 6,000 sq. m.
A few days ago, Norman Foster showed the public his next project for Moscow - a project for the reconstruction of the complex of the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, which should turn the museum into a new quarter of cultural institutions in the city center.
