UNREALISED PROJECTS

This unique book features an interview conducted by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Norman Foster on the topic of his unrealised projects.

The interview, conducted in 2019, has been carefully transcribed and edited into written form. The book features an introduction by Hans Ulrich Obrist who rightly points out that the subject of unrealised projects is often not well explored, even for architects such as Norman Foster.

Beginning with the early years of Foster’s career, the interview traces the various reasons why some projects remain unrealised—from politics and finances to misleading competition guidelines. It becomes clear that whilst a project may be unrealised, elements from its design can later be incorporated into realised projects, sometimes even decades later.

This publication includes a small ion of drawings from the Norman Foster Foundation Archive that illustrate some of the unrealised projects that Foster and Obrist discuss. The result is a compact and intimate telling of Norman Foster’s career from a different perspective, one which celebrates projects big and small, realised and unrealised.