Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020, Jorge Sainz architecture publication, Famous British architect drawings

Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020 News

post updated 16 February 2024

Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020 – Norman Foster And Jorge Sainz

• Edited by Jorge Sainz, and with texts by Sainz and Norman Foster, this title represents the introduction to a compilation of several volumes that will follow the work of Norman Foster in chronological decades, with two volumes published each year.

• This volume presents more than 546 drawings, making this a comprehensive collection of Foster’s sketchbook drawings from which he offers insights into the design process of not only his most influential projects but also of his inspirations.

Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020, Norman Foster Foundation, 2020

18 Dec 2020

Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020 – introductory volume

The Norman Foster Foundation presents the introductory volume of Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020, a new series reflecting Foster’s career from the 1970s until nowadays, through his personal sketchbooks.

‘Norman Foster is a born draughtsman, specially gifted for sketching, and his drawings are particularly brilliant in their capacity for synthesis’. describes Jorge Sainz. As he puts it, ‘His graphism has certainly evolved through time, but it maintains that economy of means characteristic of people who, besides a good hand for drawing, have very clear ideas.’

Edited by Jorge Sainz, Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020 is the introductory title from a compilation of several volumes that will follow the work of Norman Foster in chronological decades, with two volumes published each year. This introductory volume of the Norman Foster Foundation’s Sketchbooks series presents more than 546 drawings.

‘A whole personality is captured in the sketchbooks that this book presents. A book which, for lovers of drawing, will be yet another excuse to keep up their inquisitive scrutiny of those pieces of paper that have always reflected the creative subtleties of architectural genius, of scintilla divinitatis.’ – Jorge Sainz

‘I am truly grateful to Jorge Sainz for his scholarly insights and the immense task of wading through so many images and then with a selective eye, and at times humour, doing what, for me, would have been impossible, namely to choose and reject.’ – Norman Foster

Jorge Sainz

Jorge Sainz (Madrid, 1955) is a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Composition at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura (ETSAM), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), where he heads the Architectural Composition Department (2012-2020) and teaches the subjects ‘An Introduction to Architecture’ and ‘Degree Diploma Project’. He holds a Ph.D. in Architecture and works as editor and translator.

He is the author of El dibujo de arquitectura: teoría e historia de un lenguaje gráfico (Nerea, 1990; Reverté, 2005) and Infografía y arquitectura: dibujo y proyecto asistidos por ordenador (Nerea, 1992; co-authored with Fernando Valderrama), as well as the chapter ‘Twentieth-century Architecture and Urban Planning’, included in volume 4 of Historia del Arte, edited by Juan Antonio Ramírez (Alianza, 1997 and 2018). From 1988 to 1999 he worked on the editorial staff of the magazines AV Monografías and Arquitectura Viva.

Since 2004 he has been the editor of the book series Estudios Universitarios de Arquitectura, Manuales Universitarios de Edificación and Documentos de Composición Arquitectónica, published by Editorial Reverté. Among his numerous translations into Spanish there are books by authors as influential as Alan Colquhoun, William Curtis, Renato De Fusco, Kenneth Frampton, Sigfried Giedion, Moiséi Guínzburg, Rem Koolhaas, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Luciano Patetta, Paolo Portoghesi and Anthony Vidler.

Norman Foster

Norman Foster (Manchester, 1935) is the founder and executive chairman of Foster + Partners, a global studio for architecture, urbanism and design, rooted in sustainability. He was born in Manchester, and after graduating in Architecture and City Planning from Manchester University in 1961, he won a Henry Fellowship to Yale University, where he was a fellow of Jonathan Edwards College and gained a Master’s Degree in Architecture.

In 1967, he established Foster Associates in London with his late wife Wendy. Over five decades the practice has evolved and been responsible for a strikingly wide range of work, from urban masterplans, public infrastructure, airports, civic and cultural buildings, offices and workplaces to private houses and furniture design.

Major projects include Beijing Airport, Millau Viaduct in France, 30 St Mary Axe (also known as the Gherkin) and the Great Court at the British Museum in London, the Hearst Headquarters tower in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His current projects within the practice include, Apple Park in California, Bloomberg’s European Headquarters in London, the Comcast Tower in Philadelphia, 425 Park Avenue in New York, the New International Airport in Mexico City, an aviary at the ZSL London Zoo, and the Norton Museum of Art in Florida.

He is president of the Norman Foster Foundation, based in Madrid with a global reach, promoting interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists anticipate the future. He became the 21st Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate in 1999 and was awarded the Praemium Imperiale Award for Architecture in Tokyo in 2002.

In 2009, he became the 29th laureate of the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts and was awarded the Knight Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was appointed by the Queen to the Order of Merit in 1997 and in 1999 was honoured with a Life Peerage in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, as Lord Foster of Thames Bank.

Norman Foster Foundation

The Norman Foster Foundation promotes interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists anticipate the future. We believe in the importance of connecting architecture, design, technology and the arts to better serve society, and in the value of a holistic education that encourages experimentation through research and projects.

The Norman Foster Foundation holds the Norman Foster Archive and Library, which provide a window into the larger narrative and history of our built environment through the work of Norman Foster. The Norman Foster Foundation is based in Madrid and operates globally.

photo © Rudy Meisel

Foster + Partners

Norman Foster Sketchbooks 1975-2020 information / images received from The Norman Foster Foundation

The Norman Foster Foundation · Monte Esquinza 48 · Madrid, NC 28010 · Spain

Previously on e-architect:

28 Sep 2019

Foster + Partners Portfolio Book

Foster + Partners Portfolio – a complete record of the practice’s work

image : Aaron Hargreaves / Foster + Partnersr
Foster + Partners Portfolio: 1967-2017 Book