Designs and Concepts 2017-2021

Because the Norman Foster Foundation is in the unique position of being able to link its mission and educational programme to the execution of live projects by an in-house design team, it can develop conceptual and experimental projects on a wide range of scales and in multiple locations around the world. This volume presents fourteen of these endeavours, ranging from designing objects like the Cosmos Table and the travelling art installation Our Blood, to landscape interventions like Foster Retreat and The Grasshopper, as well as to enhancing cultural activities using modular structures at Waddesdon Manor Estate in England or even restoring the open-air Teatro Verde in Venice. or Renzo Piano, designing a building is equivalent to an adventure: exploring space and forms in search of authentic beauty, capable of improving places and the lives of communities. Through the narration of some of Piano’s most significant projects – the famous ones, but also the lesser known –, this volume retraces the poetics of a great architect, who from the very beginning has been able to unite, thanks to the flair and lightness of a genius, art and technique in each of his projects. The publication is made in collaboration with MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo in Rome.