Sir Norman Foster, 88, is one of the world’s leading architects. His works include Apple’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, the Gherkin in London and the Sage music centre in Gateshead. His Norman Foster Foundation, based in Madrid, aims to “help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists to anticipate the future”. A major retrospective of his work is currently on show in the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and Norman Foster: Complete Works 1965-Today has just been published.
Your exhibition is the largest that the Pompidou Centre has ever held on architecture. The new book is more than 1,000 pages over two volumes. Is the aim to make a definitive statement of your work?
First of all they were both invitations. It’s great that the Pompidou was prepared to devote so much space to the subject of architecture. So it was an opportunity to raise awareness of architecture and the infrastructure of cities. And to give insights into the creative processes beneath the surface – to show that something that looks very simple, like the circular building we did for Apple, has come out of studying many options.
