Collection: Foster + Partners

Foster + Partners is the internationally renowned firm founded in London in 1967 by Lord Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, a British architect and designer born in Manchester in 1935. The son of blue-collar workers, he left school at 16 to work at the Manchester City Council Treasury. After military service in the British Air Force, in 1961, Foster graduated from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Manchester. He continued his studies at Yale University in the United States, and once back in England, in 1965, he founded Team 4 with his wife, Wendy and Richard and Sue Rogers. Two years later, he left the firm to work with Renzo Piano. He then founded Foster Associates, now known as Foster + Partners, with his wife. The office quickly established itself on the international scene.

Starting from his very first projects, Foster's approach was always characterised by the high-tech style. The firm's exponential growth - which now has more than six hundred employees in sixteen offices around the world - and its considerable success led it to diversify by developing projects not only in the fields of architecture and town planning but also industrial design, communications, video production and research on technological and material innovation, establishing an R&D centre. Ethics, integration, technology and sustainability are fundamental principles for Foster + Partner, which collaborates with Italian and international brands in the furniture and design sectors, including Artemide, B&B Italia, Porcelanosa, Lumina, Moltemi&C., Velux, Vitra, Valli&Valli, Duravit, NemoLighting and Carpyen.

Since its inception, Foster + Partner has received over two hundred prizes and awards, winning over fifty national and international competitions. In 1987, Foster (with the Foster + Partners studio) was awarded the Compasso d'Oro prize for the Nomos office desk and table system created for the Italian brand TECNO. In 1999, Norman Foster received the prestigious Pritzker Prize. He has also been bestowed with the highest honours in England, where he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1999 and a Member of the United Kingdom Order of Merit in 2000 and abroad, being made a Knight of the Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1995. He was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit with Plaque of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1999 and designated Member of the Order Pour le Mérite for Science and the Arts (Germany) in 2002. Finally, in 2009, he received the Prince of Asturias Prize for Art (Spain). Numerous books have been written about his work. In 2010, a documentary film, "How Heavy is Your Building Mr Foster?", was directed by Carlos Carcas and Norberto Lopez Amado.