ARCHIVE
Archive and Library
The establishment and work of the Archive in the Foundation’s headquarters in Madrid commenced in 2015 and is ongoing. It is responsible for the conservation and dissemination of the architectural records of Norman Foster. Since 2015, over 74,028 items have been inventoried, with ongoing work on the conservation, cataloguing and digitising of a wide range of materials. Phases 1 through 3 will be completed by the end of 2017, with Phases 4 and 5 scheduled to commence in early 2018.
Digitising Phases 2016-2018
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
January 2016–July 2016 July 2016–February 2017 January 2017–ongoing
Drawings: 9,200 Models 2D: 214 Slides: 13,284 images (through February 2017)
Sketchbooks: 121,314 Models 360º: 10,480
TOTAL: 130,514 Images TOTAL: 10,694 Images
The Archive is available online through an open database accessible to researchers and scholars worldwide. The Archive database has been built following international OAI-PMH guidelines. (Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting)The Archive holds a great variety of materials, including drawings and plans; photographic materials; models; correspondence, personal sketchbooks and memorabilia.
The Archive’s holdings span chronologically from the 1950s through the present day. Materials relate to work from Norman Foster’s student years at Manchester and Yale University; utopian proposals created with lifelong collaborators such as Buckminster Fuller; and projects and proposals by the firms founded by Norman Foster, including Team 4, Foster Associates and Foster + Partners.