ArchShowcase Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. The Pavilion in Madrid, Spain by THE NORMAN FOSTER FOUNDATIONAugust 13th, 2017 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: THE NORMAN FOSTER FOUNDATION Norman Foster and the Trustees of the non-profit Norman Foster Foundation today announced that this new independent institution for interdisciplinary research, education, and projects in the fields of architecture, design, and urbanism will open its headquarters in Madrid in June 2017.
To mark the inauguration, the Foundation will present the day-long global forum Future is Now, bringing together leading design practitioners, policy makers, scholars, and artists. The Forum will address tomorrow’s foreseeable social, economic, and design challenges and how they are affecting our interactions today with the built environment. Norman Foster and the Trustees have also announced the appointment of the inaugural Director, architectural historian and curator Maria Nicanor, who joins the Foundation from London´s V&A Museum and New York´s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Background and Mission of the Foundation The Norman Foster Foundation promotes interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects, designers, and urbanists anticipate the future. The Foundation believes in the importance of connecting architecture, design, technology, and the arts to better serve society, and is committed to the value of a holistic education that encourages experimentation through research and projects. Since 1999, the Norman Foster Foundation in London has provided yearly travelling fellowships through London´s Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to encourage architecture students and scholars to travel anywhere in the world to pursue research about the future of cities.holistic education that encourages experimentation through research and projects. At the Foundation’s core is its Archive, a world-class facility established in 2015 and now available to scholars for the first time, which constitutes the primary source of information on the life, work, and ideas of Norman Foster and the practices he has led. The Archive´s holdings span from the 1950s to the present, with more than 74,000 items inventoried to date. Materials including drawings, models, photographs, sketchbooks, and memorabilia continue to be added on an ongoing basis. The Archive´s database is openly available online through the Norman Foster Foundation’s website. The Foundation’s first built project was the Droneport, which was unveiled at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 and which is on permanent view at Venice’s Arsenale since March 2017. The Droneport is a new building type that can be constructed by local communities in Africa as a civic and social hub, landing site for drones, and center for drone manufacture. Development of a network of Droneports would allow for the delivery of medical supplies and other necessities to areas that are difficult to access because of a lack of transport infrastructure. The decision to establish the Foundation as an independent entity, separate from the architectural practice of Foster + Partners, grew out of the perceived need for a permanent physical space that could house the Archive and study center, receive students and graduates, and present programmes and projects. Starting in June 2017 and coinciding with its launch in Madrid, the Foundation will announce a series of educational and research initiatives, projects, and publications forged in collaboration with likeminded institutions around the world. To date, the Foundation has collaborated with institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge (MIT), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne (EPFL), the Polytechnic University in Madrid, and the University of Cambridge and Bournemouth University in the UK. Norman Foster stated, “The birth of the Foundation grows out of the aspiration to help new generations to be better prepared to anticipate the future, especially in times of profound global uncertainty, and in particular to assist those professionals who are concerned with the built environment. Behind all this is our belief in the value of architecture, infrastructure, and urbanism to make a difference for the collective good. This may have a utopian ring to it; but the reality is that everything that surrounds us is the result of a conscious act of design. The quality of design determines the quality of our lives.” The Foundation’s governance body includes renowned figures in the fields of architecture, design, and innovation. Find the complete list below. Future is Now The inaugural forum of the Norman Foster Foundation, Future is Now, will be held in three sessions dedicated to cities, technology and design, and infrastructure. Each session will feature a keynote address, an interview, and a moderated panel discussion in English and will be live streamed at www.normanfosterfoundation.org. The first session, “Cities,” will have a keynote by Norman Foster. An interview with Michael Bloomberg, philanthropist, entrepreneur and three-term Mayor of New York, will be conducted by Francine Lacqua, Editorat- Large at Bloomberg. The panel discussion will feature Michael Bloomberg; architect and artist Maya Lin; Richard Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics; and Norman Foster. The second session, “Technology and Design,” will have a keynote by Matthias Kohler, Professor of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. An interview of Jonathan Ive, Chief Design Officer of Apple, will be conducted by Gillian Tett, US Managing Editor of the Financial Times. The panel discussion will feature Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; Nicholas Negroponte, Co- Founder of the MIT Media Lab; designer Marc Newson, Professor of Design at Sydney College of the Arts; architect and designer Neri Oxman, founder and Director of the Mediated Matter Group at MIT Media Lab; and designer and architect Patricia Urquiola, founder of Studio Urquiola. The third session, “Infrastructure,” will have a keynote address by Alejandro Aravena, Executive Director of Elemental. An interview of Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, will be conducted by Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Correspondent for CNN. The panel discussion will feature Luis Fernández-Galiano, Professor at ETSAM and Director of AV/Arquitectura Viva; Jonathan Ledgard, Director of Rossums Group, founder of Redline and former Director for Afrotech of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Mariana Mazzucato, Director of the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose; Henk Ovink; and Janette Sadik-Khan, Principal for Transportation at Bloomberg Associates. Following the third session, the forum will present a public conversation between artists Olafur Eliasson and Cornelia Parker, before ending with concluding remarks by Norman Foster. The Foundation Headquarters The Foundation will work globally from a former residential palace on Madrid’s Calle Monte Esquinza, which houses its Archive, Library, and study spaces. The Norman Foster studio within the Foundation has designed and realized the Pavilion, a new one-story structure in the Foundation´s courtyard. Contrasting with the historical building, the Pavilion uses a laminated glass wall structure to support a glass fiber roof to create a floating structure with no visible means of support. Artist Cristina Iglesias has designed a canopy to cover part of the entrance courtyard, which also provides shade for the façade. The Pavilion will be used for the Foundation’s programmes and events and will also house a collection of objects and visual material that has inspired Norman Foster throughout his career. Contact THE NORMAN FOSTER FOUNDATION
Category: Pavilion |