Norman Foster

The HSBC Hong Kong Headquarters, completed in 1986, is one of Foster’s most important works and the purest embodiment of his architectural philosophy. This 47-story building was the most expensive building in the world at the time (roughly equivalent to $2 billion today), but it is not a typical skyscraper: it has no central core, instead pushing all vertical circulation and service spaces to the two ends of the building, freeing a 52-meter-high, column-free, free-plan banking hall — perhaps one of the most spectacular interior public spaces in the world.

The building’s structural system is its revolutionary core: eight sets of enormous steel masts (two per set) support the floor slabs through a suspension system, as if the structural logic of a bridge had been flipped vertically. Each floor slab is hung from above rather than supported from below — meaning the structural members can be slimmer and fewer. But what is most striking is Foster’s philosophy of exposing the entire structure: passenger elevators, escalators, air-conditioning ducts, and structural connection joints are all visible, like the interior mechanism of a giant transparent watch. Architecture is no longer a box that “conceals structure” in the traditional sense but a display case that showcases the beauty of structure.

Perhaps the most prescient design is its modular adaptability: all floor slabs and services are prefabricated modular units that can be replaced over a weekend without affecting the normal operations of other floors. The building’s floor panels are also removable access floors, facilitating the easy maintenance and upgrade of piping and cabling systems at any time. In the 1980s, this was already astonishing foresight into the resilience of future buildings. The HSBC Hong Kong Headquarters is not a static monument but a continuously operating machine designed for change.

30 St Mary Axe (London, 2004), popularly known as “The Gherkin,” marks Foster’s shift from industrial expressionism toward ecological performance. The bullet-shaped profile of this 41-story tower is not only an aesthetic choice but the result of precise aerodynamic calculations: the curved form reduces wind loads and downwash, while the narrowing at the base makes the wind environment at street level more comfortable. Spiral atria at every six floors provide natural ventilation, reducing energy consumption by roughly 50 percent compared to a conventional office tower of equivalent scale. An icon that appears to be pure form is in fact the product of precise performance engineering — this is the essence of Foster’s architecture.

Apple Park (Cupertino, 2017) represents another facet of Foster’s design approach: extreme purity. The enormous ring-shaped building (461 meters in diameter) is wrapped in a continuous curved glass curtain wall — the world’s largest curved glass panels (each approximately 45 square meters). The roof is entirely covered with solar panels. Eighty percent of the site has been restored to native landscape, containing over 9,000 trees. Unlike HSBC or the Gherkin, Apple Park has almost no visible structural expression — its goal is to be the ultimate statement of minimalism: a ring so pure, so quiet, that technology itself disappears into invisibility.

Over a practice spanning six decades, Foster has traced an arc from the expression of technology to its retreat: from the spectacular structural symphony of HSBC to the ecological streamlining of the Gherkin to the ultimate abstraction of Apple Park. Yet his underlying logic has never changed: the worship of precision, the dissolution of the boundary between engineering and architecture, and the unflagging conviction that “good architecture can make people’s lives better.” He may be the most influential architect in British history — not because he created a particular style but because he redefined the architect’s role in the world: not a poet of form, but a solver of problems.