Lord Norman Foster

^{photo © Carolyn Djanogly}

Lecture
September 15, 2015

Organised by Archizoom, supporting RED LINE

Architecture in the Sky

In this lecture Lord Foster will for the first time consider his buildings in the sky, including Stansted Airport, the Hearst Tower, the Reichstag, the Great Court at the British Museum, the Millau Viaduct, the world’s largest airport in Beijing, and the world’s most advanced airport now being designed for Mexico City. The lecture will include a current project for the world’s first droneport in Africa, developed in collaboration with EPFL’s Red Line.

Architecture deals with gravity and materiality, but it has also dramatically defied gravity with the evolution of technology. This desire to reach up is especially striking in the architecture of Lord Foster. His work is an impassioned and constant attempt to exist in the sky while building on earth.

Since his Service in the Royal Air Force in the 1950s, his student projects at Manchester studying vernacular forms, and his Skybreak House from his earlier days at ground-breaking practice Team 4, Lord Foster has always been interested in innovation that pushes the physical and environmental limits of construction – up into the sky.

Video caption & editing by SAVE EPFL: Marc Delachaux, Olivier Porchet, Vincent Kappeler