How Norman Foster Integrates Architecture into Clouds, Rivers and Time

“Hong Kong has a new skyscraper to its name.” News like this is hardly surprising, whether it comes today or dates back to the 1990s.

Yet when the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters was officially completed in 1986, it sent shockwaves across the globe.The Washington Post hailed it as “the tallest building between San Francisco and Cairo at the time”. Meanwhile, the Archivision Digital Architecture Research Image Library at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology included it in its collection, noting that with a construction cost of HK$5.2 billion (approximately US$668 million), it was “the most expensive building in the world back then”.

Designed by world-renowned architect Norman Foster, this iconic building traces its origins to a pivotal moment in history. Back in 1979, Foster secured the commission to design the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters—merely a decade after he founded his architectural practice, Fosters Associates.

Mindful of Hong Kong people’s deep-rooted belief in feng shui, Foster invited feng shui masters to collaborate on the design. To align with the principle of facing “water”—in this case, Victoria Harbour—the architect created an open, transparent structure with an inspired design concept:

The building’s original internal structural framework was moved to the exterior, with the load-bearing elements suspended on both sides of the tower. This eliminated the need for a central support structure, which was replaced by a spacious, open atrium where natural light floods the interior via reflection. Furthermore, the suspended structural design elevated the office floors, leaving an open public space at the ground level that allows people to walk freely underneath the building.

Seven years in the making, this building—dubbed by Foster as “one that should never have been built in Hong Kong”—was officially completed. It also inadvertently pioneered a work model that seemed just as unfeasible back then: manufacturing building components to order across the globe, assembling them on-site, and enabling architects to oversee the project remotely without necessarily having to be physically present at the construction site.

Thus, following the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters project, Foster rose to prominence on the international stage. By establishing his global architectural practice Foster + Partners, he went on to spearhead landmark projects across Europe, the Middle East, China, and other major Asian cities.

This year, Foster turns 90. Since branching out into global projects, he has amassed a host of titles that define our perception of him to this day: Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, leading exponent of the “high-tech” architectural style, and life peer bestowed by the Queen with the title Baron Foster of Thames Bank.

Foster has been forthright in asserting that the “scale of one’s influence” matters little. For architecture, he argues, is never merely about erecting a house or a skyscraper; at its core, it is an act of design: designing how buildings interact with one another, and designing the infrastructure that connects them. These elements together form the blueprint of a city. If urbanization is the defining trend of the future, then this will be an endless, perpetual endeavor.

You will find that long before the concept of “sustainable architecture” even existed, Foster was already advocating an ecology-based design philosophy as the core pursuit of Foster + Partners.

Against the backdrop of intensifying climate crises and reshaping global order, we will draw on six of Foster’s most celebrated eco-friendly architectural works—spanning from Hong Kong to Berlin, and from London to California—to reflect on the beliefs he has upheld throughout his life, as well as his “unrealized” future: one that transcends time.

Bridges are generally regarded as the domain of engineers rather than architects. Yet in Millau, a town in southern France that serves as a stopover on the route from Paris to the Mediterranean coast, the local people’s expectations for a bridge went far beyond mere connectivity—they also hoped it would not mar the area’s magnificent plateau and river valley landscapes.

In 1996, engineer Michel Virlogeux joined forces with Norman Foster, who served as design director, to win the bid for the Millau bridge with an elegant design proposal. While most of their competitors planned to build the bridge across the river valley to link the lowlands, Virlogeux and Foster set their sights high on the mountains. They envisioned an elevated viaduct suspended in the air, connecting the two sides of the plateau, and emphasized a design philosophy centered on “blending into nature”.

Construction of the Millau Viaduct officially commenced in 2001. The bridge is composed of seven equally spaced concrete pylons, and the design of these pylons renders them as slender as possible from a side view, thereby minimizing their environmental impact. The deck was finished in a pale hue that blends seamlessly with the sky. The bridge’s alignment was also engineered into a gentle curve, allowing motorists to fully appreciate the scenic beauty as they traverse it.

The Millau Viaduct was officially opened to traffic in 2004. At the time, The Washington Post commented: “This is perhaps the lightest and most fluid bridge design to date. It merges perfectly with the surrounding landscape, resembling nothing so much as a pure environmental sculpture.”

Today, it still stands tall here, an integral part of the green mountains, river valleys and cloud-filled skies.

In 1894, Frankfurt architect Paul Wallot designed a neoclassical building for the Reichstag of the German Empire. Over the subsequent century, this edifice bore witness to a series of pivotal moments in history’s shifting tides: the 1933 Reichstag Fire, which Hitler exploited to seize power; the 1945 capture of Berlin by the Soviet Red Army, when victory flags were raised here; and the Cold War era, during which the building stood on the frontline of tensions between the governments of West and East Germany.

By the 1990s, as the dust of history settled, the reunification of Germany and the relocation of the nation’s capital back to Berlin made the renovation of this politically charged building an urgent imperative.

In 1992, Norman Foster emerged triumphant from a design competition featuring 80 German architects. Grounded in a profound understanding of history and a commitment to the future—one where the Bundestag sought to shed the scars of its brutal past, transform the building into a symbol of a “democratic forum,” and drive forward reforms for accessibility and sustainability—Foster officially embarked on the restoration of this war-ravaged structure.

Layer upon layer of historical accretions were stripped away, yet Foster deliberately preserved its striking traces of the past—such as stonemasons’ marks and graffiti left by Soviet soldiers.

Nestled in the heart of the City of London’s financial district, Bloomberg’s European Headquarters has been hailed as a paragon of sustainable office architecture ever since its completion in 2016.

Its facade is constructed from sandstone, complemented by large bronze sunshades that adjust according to orientation and sunlight levels. These shades open and close in response to weather conditions, reducing the load on the air-conditioning system through natural ventilation. On rainy days, the roof collects rainwater, which is then recycled and filtered together with wastewater from the building’s water features and showers for reuse—saving up to 25 million liters of water annually.

Inside the building, the ceiling is embedded with 500,000 energy-efficient petal-shaped LED lights that double as heating, cooling and sound insulation units. Smart sensors installed within the lights also regulate air flow based on the number of occupants in each zone.

Amidst a cluster of glass skyscrapers, Bloomberg’s European Headquarters stands like a living organic entity. One of Foster’s core objectives in designing this building was to enable it to generate, utilize, and recycle energy through its own integrated systems—thus breaking free from the traditional reliance on fossil fuels.

Notably, this “vitality” is not confined to the building itself; it extends to the entire neighborhood.

Building upward on a single acre of land to ultimately create millions of square feet of office space is the most prevalent land-use model in “modern cities”. It not only increases land capacity, but also flexibly adapts to market changes, resolving issues such as vacancy rates and tenant turnover.

On the outskirts of Cupertino, California, the Apple Park designed by Foster occupies a sprawling 175 acres with a distinctive circular structure. When Apple first unveiled this new headquarters in 2017, it faced widespread criticism for deviating from the efficient land-use paradigm. For instance, Adam Rogers, deputy editor of Wired, lambasted it as “a retrograde, insular building”.

Since its completion, the building has achieved 100% renewable energy supply. Its green space coverage has also surged from the previous 20% to 80%, allowing it to blend almost seamlessly into the surrounding woodlands and become an integral part of the local ecosystem. Evidently, against the backdrop of global warming, devising sustainable land-use models that align with the cycles of natural ecosystems has emerged as a far more pressing priority than merely adapting to market fluctuations.

In Foster’s philosophy, architecture is no longer confined to serving commercial needs alone; instead, it functions as an organic bridge between humans and nature, between cities and ecosystems. The era of erecting skyscrapers to conquer the skyline has passed. Coexisting and enduring with all living things will become the new defining proposition for the future of architecture.

In this sense, the day when Foster “retires” may truly never arrive. For throughout his career, he has been deeply rooted in the flow of “time”—racing against it, yet also driving the tides of change.

At 90 years old, this seasoned architect has already shown us, through his works and life experiences, what it means to “transcend time”: to keep moving forward, and to keep innovating, always. ☁️