Foster and Partners

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

London City Hall at night

Foster and Partners is a leading firm of architects in the United Kingdom. The practice is strongly associated with its founder, Norman Foster, now Lord Foster, and has constructed many high profile glass and steel, high-tech buildings around the world. In particular they are known for their design of airport buildings.

Established by Norman Foster as Foster Associates in 1967 shortly after he left Team 4, the company was renamed 'Foster and Partners' in the 1990s to more accurately reflect the influence of the other lead architects.

[edit] Senior partners

The practice is an umbrella for some seven hundred architects, project specialists and support team, the main office is laid out in an open plan egalitarian style with all architects working at a similar desk irrespective of seniority, However, as of 2006 the lead partners are:

The Millau Viaduct, completed in 2004, is the highest road bridge in the world.

• Norman Foster
• Spencer de Grey
• David Nelson
• Graham Phillips
• Mark Sutcliffe
• Stefan Behling
• Grant Booker
• Nigel Dancey
• Brandon Haw
• Paul Kalkhoven
• Mouzhan Majidi
• Gerard Evendan

The tessellated glass roof of the British Museum's Great Court redevelopment has a complex curved form, approximating the top half of a doughnut anchored by the circular Reading Room at the centre of the court.

Another highly influential partner for most of the practice's history was Ken Shuttleworth who was the a key team member in some of their most famous designs, including: 30 St Mary Axe, the Greater London Authority Building, Hong Kong International Airport and the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt.

Shuttleworth's position as a team member meant that he was at the time more than happy to let the firm rightly take full credit — and in truth these highly technical buildings require the input from a large team of individuals and no one person can take all the credit, However at the end of 2003, after nearly 30 years of work, Shuttleworth raised his personal profile significantly and then left Foster and Partners to establish his own practice, MAKE.

[edit] Selected projects

Major projects, by year of completion are:

• Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK (1978)
• HSBC Tower (1986)
• Terminal building at Stansted Airport, UK (1991)
• Faculty of Law, Cambridge (1995)
• Metro of Bilbao, Spain (1995) — Line 2 (2004)
• American Air Museum, Imperial War Museum Duxford, UK (1997) — Stirling Prize
• Clyde Auditorium, part of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre complex, Glasgow, UK (1997)
  

  

  30 St Mary Axe, one of London's most popular new buildings, towers above its neighbours.
• Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt, Germany (1997)
• Hong Kong International Airport, Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong (1998)
• Canary Wharf Underground Station, London, UK (1999)
• Reichstag redevelopment in Berlin (1999)
• Millennium Bridge in London (1999/2002)
• Redevelopment of the Great Court of the British Museum (2000)
• London City Hall (2002)
• 30 St Mary Axe, London — Swiss Re headquarters (2004) — Stirling Prize
• Millau Viaduct, the highest road bridge in the world (2004)
• The Sage Gateshead, UK (2004)
• MoorHouse, 117 London Wall, London (projected 2005)
• Wembley Stadium redevelopment (projected 2005)
• Beijing Airport — under construction
• New Supreme Court Building, Singapore (2005)
• Palace of Peace, Astana, Kazakhstan — (September 2006)
• Hearst Tower, New York City, New York (June 2006)
• Jameson House, Vancouver — (not yet on site)
• The Bow, Calgary - (projected 2010)

[edit] See also

• Norman Foster
• Ken Shuttleworth and MAKE
• Richard Rogers

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Foster and Partners

• Practice web site
• Newspaper article on Shuttleworth's influence.