Who is Norman Robert Foster?

Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, (born 1 June 1935), is an English architect whose company, Foster + Partners, maintains an international design practice famous for high-tech architecture.

He is the President of the Norman Foster Foundation. The Norman Foster Foundation promotes interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists to anticipate the future. The foundation, which opened in June 2017, is based in Madrid and operates globally.

He is one of the most prolific British architects of his generation. In 1999, he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture. In 2009, Foster was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award in the Arts category. In 1994, he received the AIA gold medal (American Institute of Architects).

Foster was assigned to design 30 St Mary Axe (known previously as the Swiss Re Building), informally known as "The Gherkin", a very well known commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. Foster worked with engineers to integrate complex computer systems with the most basic physical laws, such as convection.

Foster was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) on 19 May 1983, and a Royal Academician (RA) on 26 June 1991. In 1995, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (HonFREng). On 24 April 2017, he was given the Freedom of the City of London.