Norman Foster

Norman Foster is a major contributor to twentieth century architecture both in the western

world and further afield. After starting his studies in architecture over 50 years ago he has designed

a range of buildings (and bridges) and continues to produce outstanding designs today. Aswell as

exploring Foster's career this essay will focus primarily on two of Foster's buildings, Creek Vean

House in Cornwall and the Willis Building in Ipswich (originally the Willis Faber and Dumas

Headquarters).

Born in Manchester on 1 June 1935 to working class parents, Foster was a bright student

who after attending a private school and a grammar school was pressurised to leave early in order to

earn a living. It wasn't until 1956 after working in a bakery, a city treasurer's office, a factory,

selling furniture, spending time in the Royal Air Force on national service and studying commercial

law that he finally started his studies in architecture. Graduating from Manchester university school

of architecture and city planning in 1961, Foster won the Henry fellowship to study at Yale

university where he obtained his master's degree and also met Richard Rogers, another British

architect whom he became good friends with. In 1963 Rogers and Foster along with their

respective wives Su and Wendy formed 'Team 4', a practice known for its high-tech designs and the

group behind Creek Vean House. In 1967 Team 4 ended and Foster and Wendy set up Foster

Associates (now Foster and Partners). Between 1968 and 1983 Foster collaborated on a number of

projects including the Samuel Beckett Theatre project with Richard Buckminster Fuller who

happened to be one of his idols. Foster called him a "lone voice," whose work with geodesics

demonstrated how building form could be both economical and ecological. Orientation and

building form became, for Foster, touchstones in his design of ecological architecture. - Michael J.

Crosbie, ArchitectureWeek. Foster Associates has produced many well known works such as the

Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, the Hongkong and Shanghai bank, the Millau Viaduct in France, the

British Museum Great Court in London and the Swiss Re tower in London to name but a few. Over

History and Theory of Architecture

the years Foster Associates has achieved more than 190 awards and won over 50 competitions for

its work, in 1990 Foster was Knighted and in 1999 he was honoured with a life peerage giving him

the title Lord Foster Of Thames Bank, in the same year he became the 21st Pritzker Architecture

Prize laureate.

Creak Vean house was the first work of group Team 4, built in 1964, it was commissioned

by Marcus Brumwell as a home for himself and his wife who were the parents of Su Rogers.

Although Foster has concentrated more on buildings for the workplace, houses which show

similarities to Creek Vean are the Jaffe house and Murray Mews which were also designed by Team

4, these buildings are orientated to make the most of their views and have large slanting glass walls,

similar to the glass walk way and large glass walls in Creek Vean.

The Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters in Ipswich was built from 1971-1975 as a

workplace for around 1300 employees. Foster has mostly designed buildings for the workplace

and is very good at designing space for employees to enjoy their surroundings. The three storey

building is surrounded by a glass façade, similar to that in some of his later buildings such as Hearst

Tower in New York City, the Swiss Re Headquarters in London, the HSBC UK Headquarters in

London and City Hall in London. The façade also has a curved appearance, with no hard edges or

corners, similar to the Swiss Re and City Hall buildings, the American Air Museum and the new

Willis Headquarters in London. Inside the Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters escalators lead up

through the central atrium, in Foster's Hongkong and Shanghai bank he uses a similar approach but

on a larger scale with a ten storey atrium and the escalators leading up to the main banking hall. The

Ipswich building established a couple of themes that Foster returned to in project after project: how

the building meets the ground in an accommodating way; how light, views, and the interior

environment can be adjusted and modified; and how to introduce green space into an urban

environment such as an office building.-ArchitectureWeek

History and Theory of Architecture

 Creek Vean House is positioned overlooking the Fal estuary in Cornwall on a steep

riverbank. The house is made up of two separate blocks at different angles to each other linked

together by a long glass-roofed corridor which was used as a gallery. One of the blocks is one storey

high and contains the bedrooms and studio and the other block is two storeys high and contains the

living room and dining room, the ground floor rooms are cut back into the hillside and the one

storey block's roof is covered in vegetation, this gives the impression the house is carved into the

landscape. All the main rooms have large sliding doors off the main corridor and are angled so that

they have the best views possible out over the estuary, this results in the rooms being fan shaped

with very angular corners. The house is constructed of exposed concrete blocks and reinforced

concrete slabs, the floors are slate. Outside the building, winding steps lead down the slope from

the access road above the house. They step down through the building over the corridor that links

the two blocks (the corridor has a solid roof at this point), emphasising the split in the two parts of

the building and continue down through the garden to a boat house on the shore below.

The Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters is situated in Ipswich. unlike many office buildings

it is only three storeys high and is spread out to fit in with the shape of the surrounding streets, with

the curved glass façade showing reflections of the surrounding buildings. On entering the building

there is a central atrium with escalators leading right up to the rooftop restaurant. Overlooking the

atrium are the different storeys with open plan office space, the layout of the office space and fact

that it is so open plan gives the workplace a very communal feel. ...orientation is direct:you always

know where you are, one can move freely, the sun penetrates everywhere and there are only a few

visual barriers. - Norman Foster. The building was also built with a rooftop garden and a

swimming pool for the employees to use in their lunch breaks but the swimming pool has since

been covered with a glass floor.

Around the time Creek Vean was built (1964) James Sterling had just built the Leicester

University engineering building (1963). There are similarities between their work, both use a lot of

History and Theory of Architecture

glass and non standard geometry for walls however where Foster's house tries to blend in with the

surrounding area the University building is very bold and brutal. Another house built around the

same period is Hanselmann House in Indiana, 1967 by Michael Graves. This house is very

modernist with lots of open spaces and like Creek Vean it uses steps as a link to the house. Vanna

Venturi House was built between 1962-1964 by Robert Venturi. Unlike Creek Vean which blends in

with its environment Venturi's house really tries to make a statement.

Around the time the Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters was built (1971-1975),

The Creek Vean House shows similarities to Frank Lloyd Wright's building's, particularly

Fallingwater built from 1935-1937. Wright designed the house around the surroundings, similar to

Foster and so it appears that the house is almost growing out of the rock beneath it. In both houses

steps are used as a passageway from the house down to the water.

History and Theory of Architecture

Bibliography

Norman Foster
-Daniel Treiber

New Architecture In Britain

-Kenneth Powell

The Story Of Western Architecture

-Bill Risebero

Key Houses of the Twentieth Century

-Colin Davies

Key Buildings of the Twentieth Century

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www.designboom.com

www.bookrags.com

www.fosterassociates.com

www.architectureweek.com

History and Theory of Architecture