Lord Norman Foster - Hardcover

Deyan Sudjic

3.95

78 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297858688 ISBN 13: 9780297858683

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Norman Foster is a phenomenon - as an architect, but also as an individual. He is responsible for a dozen or more of the most recognisable buildings of the last thirty years. Under his driven leadership, what is now called Foster and Partners has grown to an international firm with almost 1,000 employees, building astonishing constructions all over the world.

Deyan Sudjic explores the nature of the impact that he has had on architecture, and on the contemporary city. It traces his remarkable journey from the backstreets of Manchester, the determination with which he has built a global architectural practice, and his huge creative impact on what we see around us.

Amongst many other buildings, Norman Foster is responsible for the design of Beijing's new airport, one of the world's largest, for the Rossiya tower in Moscow, in contention to be the tallest skyscraper in Europe until the credit crunch killed it, for one of the towers at Ground Zero in Manhattan, and for a crop of new towers in London. He designed the Reichstag, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banks headquarters in London and China, the new Wembley stadium and the British Museum's new court.

Deyan Sudjic's insightful and elegantly written biography charts the remarkable life of one of the world's most influential architectural figures.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Deyan Sudjic studied architecture at the University of Edinburgh, and has worked as a critic, editor and curator. Currently the director of the Design Museum, he helped to establish BLUEPRINT magazine, edited DOMUS in Milan for a number of years, and was the director of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2002. He is a former architecture critic for the OBSERVER, the GUARDIAN and the SUNDAY TIMES.

Review:

'Sudjic explans how Foster helped transform his profession. When he started out, it was largely a gentlemanly, small-scale business, a sort of cottage industry with a strong emphasis on the handicraft of models and drawings. Projects outside an architect's country were the exception. Today, Foster's practice employs well over 1,000 people. The book tells this story clearly and it makes a good introduction to Foster' -- Rowan Moore THE OBSERVER 'Deyan Sudjic's discursive biography offers a portrait of a searcher, a man always exploring the limits of architecture, of whom one client pays the ultimate compliment: Foster "asked the right questions".' -- Leo Hollis SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'It is an extraordinary story of a truly self-made man who seems a kickback to the great Victorians, the engineers and industrialists who made the Manchester he came from and conquered the world with their machines' -- Edwin Heathcote FINANCIAL TIMES 'Deyan Sudjic has delivered meticulously researched and pyschologically resonant insights into the conflicting forces of aspiration and outsider status that propelled Foster towards his breakthrough building, the amenities block for the Fred Olsen Line in Milwall in 1969...Sudjic is particularly good at delineating Foster's astonishing ability to get clients to revise their expectations so that he could develop truly radical architecture' -- Jay Merrick THE INDEPENDENT 'The success of the book comes from its insights into the young Foster's life' -- Alice Wyllie THE SCOTSMAN 'Deyan Sudjic has traced Foster's career since he mounted the now legendary Fosters Rogers Stirling Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1986...This book is a story about power that charts Foster's journey' -- Ed Hollis DAILY TELEGRAPH '

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.