Sir Norman Foster is one of the world's most acclaimed architects and has received numerous international awards for his innovative designs. In 1983, a few months after completion of the Renault Centre, he received the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects; and in April 1990 his Willis Faber and Dumas headquarters building received the first Trustees Medal awarded by the RIBA Architecture Awards Trust, for being 'the finest work by a British designer anywhere in the world completed between 1965 and 1983'. Soon after, in June 1990, he received a knighthood.
More of his works, including the Willis Faber and Dumas headquarters in Ipswich, and London's revolutionary new Stansted airport, are featured in the Architecture in Detail series.
Chris Abel graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 1968. He has taught architecture in universities on four continents, and written numerous publications on the theory and criticism of architecture in both the developed and developing word. The leading international journals for which he writes include the Architectural Review, Architectural Record, and Architecture + Urbanism.