retrospective exhibition in the art world means honouring a lifetime’s work by an artist. It is rare for living artists and even rarer for architects to get a retrospective. But the world-famous British architect Sir Norman Foster had one in 2023 at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Architects are mostly unknown designers of our built environment. A few do enjoy fame. Fewer still become megastars. Sir Norman Foster is a megastar. At age 88, his practice, spanning over two dozen cities across the world, continues to produce landmark buildings in Asia, Europe, America and Latin America. Buildings currently under construction include the JP Morgan’s new headquarters in New York and the National Bank of Kuwait.

Foster, along with Sir Richard Rogers (1933-2021), was one of the key figures of high-tech architecture school emerging from Britain in early 1970s. These architects turned service areas or machinery of a building like the elevators, plumbing ducts or air-conditioning units into a building’s decorative façade creating more space within office buildings by removing the service clutter which would occupy the inside spaces or the middle of a high-rise building. They also used newer materials and technologies. The high-tech architecture celebrates technological advancement without much consideration for the cost of a building.

I discovered Foster and Rogers in early 1990s. It was the third year of my architecture studies at the National College of Arts, Lahore, when I bumped into a dense yellow Rogers and Foster biography. Both the Brits had studied on a scholarship at the Yale University in the United States. Rogers returned to Britain and convinced Foster to join him with two other friends to establish TeamFour architecture practice. After a few years they went their own ways to become the biggest names in architecture.

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris where the Foster retrospective took place. The Pompidou Center was built in late 1970s as a statement of continuing French dominance in the world of art and architecture. It was a new Parisian cultural hub with cinemas, galleries and library - the building services encircle the facade like a snake. On one side, the glass covered escalator scales the Centre like an airport tube but with a delightful view of Paris. I happened to meet both Rogers and Piano in 2013 when they came to the UN headquarters in New York to attend the Pritzker Prize ceremony along with Jean Nouvel. In the ECOSOC Chamber of UN headquarters, I was among the few diplomats privileged to meet these greats of architecture. I told both Piano and Rogers how I had discovered them through a book in early 1990s.

Norman Foster’s Hong Kong Shanghai Bank headquarters building in Hong Kong was completed in 1987. It was at that time the most expensive building ever built. The HKSB headquarters is a serene grey glass structure with trusses and a gigantic atrium. Pompidou and HKSB became global icons of high-tech architecture and remained inspiration for students of architecture like me though my improvisation of high-tech projects remained low-tech and tardy.

Wherever I go, I try to locate a Foster building and pay homage. The HKSB headquarters in Hong Kong was the first Foster building I saw in-person rising gently through the HK maze of smaller spaces but providing a whole piazza under the complex. It remains an icon and changed the way high-rise building was conceived. Despite its beauty and great spaces, a banker once complained to me that it was not a user-friendly workspace. The Hearst Tower in New York was the next one for me followed by the Jeddah Metro station; Reichstag, the new German Parliament in Berlin; and the Alif Pavilion for the Dubai Expo.

Foster’s retrospective held in Paris in May-August 2023, was a lifetime opportunity to see his practice placed under one roof. It was the opportunity to understand the thought process of one of my favorite architects. I made a memorable day-long dash from The Hague to Paris on the last day of exhibition to see Lord Foster’s work.

There is a beautifully made documentary on Foster titled How much does your building weigh, Mr Foster available online. It shows that Foster was inspired by Buckminster Fuller, the futuristic American architect (1893-1983) and narrates how, upon seeing a project, Buckminster asked Foster, how much did it weigh. Foster is a stickler for details. He ended up calculating the exact weight. The expression conveys how a building could appear weighty or light because of its design. I am not sure when Buckminster asked the question but those following Foster’s works can relate to it because despite the size and scale Foster’s buildings have aesthetically and visually light designs and structure. Buildings like the IBM Pilot Headquarters (1971), Sackler Galleries, London (1991), Communication Tower outside Barcelona (1992), the HKSB, the London Millennium bridge (2000) and the Millau Viaduct bridge (2004) are all examples of that.

The Foster retrospective at Pompidou was divided in eight themes to show his work over more than six decade: “Drawing Gallery; Nature and Urbanity; Skin and Bones; The Vertical City; History and Tradition; Planning and Places; Networks and Mobility; and Futures.”

The Drawing Gallery displayed Foster’s architectural drawings and sketches affording useful insight into his great mind. Foster has a habit of carrying an A4 size sketch book with him. Many of those were displayed. They showed his meticulous drawing and thinking process. One could identify various details of his work. It seems that Foster designs the structure in parallel with design concept of a buildings. His concepts evolved into simpler and aesthetically pleasing structures using technology and aiming for sustainability. It is a lesson for all budding designers and creative people. If Lord Foster carries his A4 sketch book at 88, we need to hold on to ours too. This section of exhibition was most crowded – I could see students, teachers and architects from all over the world trying to decode Foster’s genius through those sketches.

Foster’s practice is truly multinational. The exhibition gives impression of a visionary corporate business group leader and someone who is very conscious of his own aura, brand and legacy. This was also evident from some of his personal memorabilia on display like the Dymaxion vehicle of Buckminster Fuller or a car that was once owned by Le Corbusier or a joinery-free artwork by Ai Weiwei. These showed objects that inspired Foster but also his impressive collection and how he carefully wants to craft his image and legacy.

Foster’s buildings have a presence of their own be they in a downtown skyline, a bridge or a museum. The Hearst Building in New York has a unique triangular structure; it is a mid-rise building in New York City but stands out among its much taller neighbours in Columbus Circle with CNN Tower and one of the flashy Trump Towers on different sides of the circle. It was probably one of Foster’s first buildings in the city which is synonymous with idea of skyscrapers.

Not all Foster’s buildings reach the level of his image. For example, I used to live in New York and regularly walked to the UN headquarter on First Avenue and followed construction of 50 UN Plaza which is a residential tower on 48 and First Avenue. The structure rose above others and was among city’s new group of luxury residential towers but from the outside it appeared to be a usual dark brown sky rise. It has a great view of the East River and has a lot of open space to look at with the green spaces of the UNHQ but it seems to stand isolated from its historic UN neighbourhood. Just a couple of blocks down, we have New York’s first high-rise buildings. Even from the inside, when I visited a penthouse of an ambassador, besides the sleek design and finishes there was no Foster touch that I could feel as an architect.

The retrospective documented details of many world-famous buildings like the headquarters of Apple in Cupertino; Master-plan and Technology Institute for Masdar city in the UAE and the Wembley Stadium. In all these mega projects sustainable design has been an underlying feature but one also wonders if it is easy to achieve sustainability in a single unit where construction expense is one of the least worries leading to isolated islands of sustainability whereas we need global and mass market solutions. Foster’s designs are for the richest of multinationals or clients and sometimes seem distant from the reality of sky lines of many developing countries. That probably is the perpetual dilemma of high-tech architecture but it does not reduce the impact of Foster’s buildings.

Foster, to his credit, is now trying to think about global concerns at a bigger scale and steer his foundation, based in Spain, to work on sustainable design and environment. He is indeed one of the architects who have re-envisioned the design of a building especially the high-rises. Many of Foster’s buildings really made one wonder how much they weighed.

The contributor, a career diplomat, is Pakistan’s ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He also writes about contemporary art and architecture. His book All That Art, on Pakistani art & architecture was published in 2021. Ambassador Tarar can be followed on Instagram @suljuktarar & X @suljuk.