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Mohammed Habib Aljanabi 1010745
ZA
Norman Foster
Richard Buckminster Fuller
Foster ventured around Manchester observing buildings. The art deco Express Building in Manchester was a building that intrigued him. After failing to gain a job, Foster was led to John Beardstow, a local architect in Manchester. After a successful interview, he gained a job as an assistant to a contract manager at the practice. Foster was unsure how to become an architect, and if it was even possible coming from a working-class background where money for tuition was slim. Nevertheless, he queried colleagues at the architecture practice for advice on how to become an architect. Advised to create a portfolio to hand to an architecture school, he took various drawings, such as perspective and shop drawings from Beardstow's practice as inspiration.[19] Foster intended to submit this portfolio to an architectural school in the hope of gaining, however inadvertently Beardstow was so impressed with the drawings he promoted the young Foster to the drawing department of the practice.However after trying to convince Foster to stay and learn his trade as an architect at Beardstow's, Foster declined and wanted to pursue a place at an architecture school. After he was discharged, in 1956 Foster won a place at the University of Manchester School of Architecture and City Planning. Foster failed to get a grant to help fund his studies, and being from a working-class background money was at a minimum. He took up a number of part-time jobs to fund his studies in Architecture.[21] His jobs in his teenage years included being an ice-cream salesman, night-club bouncer and working night shifts at the local bakery to make crumpets.[7] He combined these with self-tuition via visits to the local library in Levenshulme.[22] Foster took a keen interest in the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer and graduated from Manchester in 1961. Foster won the Henry Fellowship to the Yale School of Architecture, where he met future business partner Richard Rogers and earned his Master's degree. Vincent Scully encouraged Foster and Rogers to travel in America for a year. After returning to the UK in 1963 he set up an architectural practice as Team 4 with Rogers and the sisters Georgie and Wendy Cheesman. Georgie (later Wolton) was the only one of the team that had passed her RIBA exams allowing them to set up in practice on their own. Team 4 quickly earned a reputation for high-tech industrial design.
Foster was assigned the brief for a development on the site of the Baltic Exchange in the 1990s. The Exchange was damaged beyond repair by a bomb left by the IRA. Foster + Partners submitted a plan for a 385 metre tall skyscraper, the London Millennium Tower, but its height was seen as excessive for London's skyline.The proposal was scrapped and instead Foster proposed 30 St Mary Axe, "the gherkin" due to its design which alluded to its shape. Foster worked with engineers to integrate complex computer systems with the most basic physical laws, such as convection. Green, sustainable energy ideas include the complex facade which lets in air for passive cooling and vents it as it warms and rises. Foster's earlier designs reflected a sophisticated, machine-influenced high-tech vision. His style has evolved into a more sharp-edged modernity. In 2004, Foster designed the tallest bridge in the world, the Millau Viaduct in southern France, with the Millau Mayor Jacques Godfrain stating; "The architect, Norman Foster, gave us a model of art. In January 2007, The Sunday Times reported that Foster had called in Catalyst, a corporate finance house, to find buyers for Foster + Partners. Foster does not intend to retire, but sell his 80–90% holding in the company valued at £300M to £500M.[28] In 2007, he worked with Philippe Starck and Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin Group for the Virgin Galactic plans. Foster currently sits on the Board of Trustees at architectural charity Article 25 who design, construct and manage innovative, safe, sustainable buildings in some of the most inhospitable and unstable regions of the world. He has also been
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