Norman Foster AV Monographs, Arquitectura Viva

AV Monographs, Norman Foster Book, Architecture Publication, British Architect

Norman Foster AV Monographs

Architectural Book published by Arquitectura Viva SL

30 Jan 2014

Norman Foster in the 21st Century

Publisher: Arquitectura Viva SL
Editor: Luis Fernández-Galiano

Norman Foster AV Monographs

Like his admired Buckminster Fuller, Norman Foster thinks of Earth as a spaceship that travels through space taking us on board, and for whose care we are all responsible. If there is a guiding thread for fifty years of work it is precisely the desire to find generic solutions to unique problems, so that innovation is placed at the service of the efficient use of resources and the sustainable occupation of the planet.

Norman Foster AV Monographs 1
image from publisher Arquitectura Viva SL

In 1963, when Foster returned from the United States to begin his professional life in London, NASA launched the first geosynchronous satellite, ushering in a new era in telecommunications, and tangling the globe in a dense information mesh that functions as the neural network of our world; half a century later, in 2013, the Voyager 1 space probe has abandoned the Solar System, becoming the first manmade object to do so, and perhaps facing us with our radical solitude in the Universe.

Architectural Book published by Arquitectura Viva SL
photo © Rudy Meisel

AV’s journey is shorter than Foster’s, but since 1985 we have followed his extraordinary itinerary with special attention, documenting up to 320 works, projects and news items in our three magazines. The current monograph, the longest we have ever printed, is the third devoted to him, and in this case we have profited from his continued collaboration, from the endless versions of the list of projects to be included to their narrative grouping, and up to the comprehensive article that opens the issue, in which he traces his map of influences.

The previous monographs appeared in 1992 (AV 38, covering his work since 1986) and 1999 (AV 78, offering a brief review of his whole career), but this introduction is illustrated with a drawing by Focho published in 1991 in Arquitectura Viva, and which sums up well, I think, the inventive, demanding and optimistic mood of this crew member of spaceship Earth.

glass dome roof:
Foster + Partners glass dome roof
photograph © Nigel Young

Marseille pavilion roof:
Foster + Partners Marseille pavilion roof
photo © Nigel Young

masterplan design:
Foster + Partners masterplan design
image from Superstock

Swiss balconies wooden facade:
Foster + Partners Swiss balconies wooden facade
photo © Nigel Young

Spaceport New Mexico top view:
Foster + Partners Spaceport New Mexico top view
image from publisher Arquitectura Viva SL

Apple Campus design from above:
Foster + Partners Apple Campus design from above
image from publisher Arquitectura Viva SL

The Gherkin tower London:
Foster + Partners The Gherkin tower London
photo © Grant Smith

Wembley Arch North London:
Foster + Partners Wembley Arch North London UK
photo © Hufton Crow / View pictures

Image Credits (text provided like this, correlation difficult, clarification requested – and welcomed:

1, 3, 7 from publisher
2 © Rudy Meisel
4, 8, 10 © Nigel Young
5 © Superstock
6 © Grant Smith
9 © Hufton Crow

Foster + Partners Architects, London, UK

Norman Foster AV Monographs information / images received from Arquitectura Viva SL

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photo courtesy of architects office
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Comments / photos for the Norman Foster Architecture Books page welcome

Foster & Partners – external site