Norman Foster Quotes

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Norman Foster

Profession : Architect

Birth : June 1, 1935

As an architect, you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.

Norman Foster

I'm not a creature of habit. I like to find things from unexpected sources.

Norman Foster

You cannot separate the buildings out from the infrastructure of cites and the mobility of transit.

Norman Foster

I think you never stop learning.

Norman Foster

I love flying; I love aircraft, and you could say I've had a love affair with flight since I was a child. I travel a huge amount. I use airports, and as a pilot, I've flown in and out of airports thousands of times, so really, I have a fairly broad perspective.

Norman Foster

I describe the design process as like the tip of the iceberg. What you don't see is the long haul: all the endless auditing and things like that.

Norman Foster

A life-threatening illness or two certainly gives you an awareness of your own mortality. It heightens your sense of gratitude for things that previously, if you've not taken them for granted, you perhaps never appreciated how precious they were. That's almost a platitude, but one has to state the obvious.

Norman Foster

The most amazing lesson in aerodynamics I ever had was the day I climbed a thermal in a glider at the same time as an eagle. I witnessed, close up, effortlessness and lightness combined with strength, precision and determination.

Norman Foster

The Italians have long known what makes a livable town or city.

Norman Foster

Anything that reduces fuel consumption and cuts down on greenhouse gasses is good news.

Norman Foster

Control is the wrong word. The practice is very much about sharing, and, in any creative practice, some individuals, whether partners or directors, are much closer to certain projects than I could ever be.

Norman Foster

There's a snobbery at work in architecture. The subject is too often treated as a fine art, delicately wrapped in mumbo-jumbo. In reality, it's an all-embracing discipline taking in science, art, maths, engineering, climate, nature, politics, economics.

Norman Foster

Joseph Bazalgette created a sewer system which he originally sized for London's needs of the time - he then doubled it to anticipate the future beyond. These are the qualities that I admire.

Norman Foster

I think cars encapsulate the history of innovation and style - it's the other side of the coin of the car being public enemy No.1.

Norman Foster

Every time I've flown an aircraft, or visited a steelworks, or watched a panel-beater at work, I've learned something new that can be applied to buildings.

Norman Foster

I was born in 1935, and as far back as I can remember, I was sketching designs. My first subject was an aircraft, which I imagined myself piloting.

Norman Foster

There are those airports which make you feel better, and there are those airports that, when you go there, your heart sinks: you can't wait to get out of there. They both function as airports, but it's the things that you can't measure that make them different.

Norman Foster

Manhattan, one of the most moneyed spots on the planet, also has one of the greatest concentrations of people in its skyscrapers. It's also, of course, the place where every architect wants to build his tower.

Norman Foster

I tend to move between turtlenecks and shirts and ties. I don't really have a uniform in the sense that some people might.

Norman Foster

I would never wear anything with a logo. That I really find difficult. It's a frustration that I'll find a nice shirt or something and it's got 50 prints of the logo on it - why do they do this?

Norman Foster