BUILDING WITH HISTORY

This book offers a critique of Foster + Partners' work in the context of historic structures or sensitive historical locations. Foster + Partners' work is rooted in a belief that there is no conflict between a passion for structures from the past and anticipation of the architecture of the future: old and new can coexist with integrity and without apology. Per Norman Foster, "Each age produces its own vocabulary.
In buildings that have evolved over time the original layers of history can often be understood more readily when seen alongside the new." Critic Paul Goldberger explores the practice's approach to "building with history," culminating with the remodeling of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Complementing the study is a pictorial record of projects that illustrate different strands of Foster + Partners' work in this field, photographed by the distinguished Richard Bryant and the late Mark Fiennes.

Paul Goldberger is one of the world's leading figures in architecture criticism. He is currently a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair; before that he served as the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where he wrote the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City. He began his career at The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, the highest award in journalism. In 2012 he received the Vincent Scully Prize from National Building Museum in recognition of the influence his writing has had on the public's understanting of architecture.