Norman Foster Quotes

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Norman Foster

Profession : Architect

Birth : June 1, 1935

Google has already tested robot cars in San Francisco. If they can navigate San Francisco, they can probably manage just about anywhere.

Norman Foster

I hope that any expansion of London will learn from the planning examples of some of its most desirable areas such as Chelsea, Notting Hill, Belgravia and Mayfair. All are characterised by high density and a generosity of green spaces. They are all pedestrian-friendly with shops, entertainment, restaurants and pubs within easy walking distance.

Norman Foster

You can find, occasionally, some absolutely fantastic things in hunting shops. I've got one jacket that I just happened across which is a kind of unwashed leather - completely anonymous but absolutely special.

Norman Foster

I travel continuously, and I see many cities, but there is nowhere like London.

Norman Foster

I hope that any expansion of London will learn from the planning examples of some of its most desirable areas such as Chelsea, Notting Hill, Belgravia and Mayfair. All are characterised by high density and a generosity of green spaces.

Norman Foster

The only honourable work my parents knew was blue-collar. But while my father Robert ran a pawnbroker's shop, and my mother was a waitress, I moved into a middle-class world with a level of security they never knew.

Norman Foster

We now think it hilarious that medieval streets were used as open sewers. Equally, our descendants will say: 'You won't believe this, but people were once allowed to hurl a couple of tons of dangerous metal around smashing into each other.'

Norman Foster

Surveys often show people would prefer a detached house with a lawn and driveway to an apartment. I understand this. It's not my place to presume to tell people where they can live. But perhaps that dream will simply not be possible in the future.

Norman Foster

When the Great Fire of London destroyed most of the medieval city in 1666, Christopher Wren was invited to design a new one. Within days, he had drawn up an elegant grid of broad boulevards leading to majestic squares, but it came to nothing - the existing landowners wanted things as they had been.

Norman Foster

In Britain, the idea one could go from blue-collar beginnings to the university was so far out, it was quite unthinkable. I took a variety of jobs to pay for tuition - from ice-cream salesman to night-club bouncer. Whatever earned the most money in the least time.

Norman Foster

Since Stonehenge, architects have always been at the cutting edge of technology. And you can't separate technology from the humanistic and spiritual content of a building.

Norman Foster