Foster · 1999
Norman Foster's Reichstag dome opens to the Bundestag
At ten in the morning of Monday the nineteenth of April 1999, on the Tiergarten waterfront edge of the Spree at the standing Platz der Republik in central Berlin, the standing-newly-reconstructed glass-and-steel observation-dome that the standing sixty-three-year-old Manchester-born British architect Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, had designed across the standing 1992-to-1999 standing-Foster-and-Partners reconstruction-and-renovation of the standing-1894-Paul-Wallot-designed nineteenth-century-German-Reichstag parliamentary-building (the standing-Berlin parliamentary-building that had stood empty and ruined since the standing 1933 Reichstag-fire under the Nazi-arson-and-the standing-1945-Soviet-Red-Army-storming) opened to the standing-first standing-Bundestag-parliamentary-session of the post-Cold-War standing-reunified-German-federal-parliament. The standing-Foster-Reichstag-dome (the standing-glass-and-steel double-spiral inverted-cone forty-metre-diameter standing-public-walkable observation-dome that stood at the centre of the standing-reconstructed Reichstag building, with the standing-double-spiral ramp that admitted approximately three thousand standing-public-visitors per day to the standing-walkable dome-interior under the standing-Bundestag standing-debating-chamber below) was the standing-foundational standing-architectural-statement of the standing-post-Cold-War unified-German-democratic-political-architecture: the standing-walkable observation-dome that put the standing-democratic-public physically-above the standing-parliamentary-chamber where the standing-elected-deputies debated, with the standing-public standing-walking-around the standing-Bundestag standing-debating-chamber while the standing-Bundestag-session-proceeded below. The standing-Foster-Reichstag-dome opened the standing-Bundestag-parliamentary-session in the standing-new German-federal-capital of Berlin on the standing nineteenth of April 1999 in the standing-formal-Bundestag-opening-session-ceremony under the standing-Federal President Roman Herzog and the standing-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and is universally remembered as the central single-architectural-symbol of the standing-post-Cold-War unified-German-democratic-political-architecture.
An architectural commission is rarely won by a British architect for the standing-central-political-building of a standing-newly-reunified-foreign-nation in the standing-architectural-design-competition against the standing-best-of-the-international-architectural-competition field. The Reichstag-reconstruction-competition of 1992 was the standing-political-and-architectural-test-case of the standing-post-1990-German-reunification: the standing-Bonn-to-Berlin federal-capital-relocation decision of the standing-1991 Bundestag-vote had committed the German-federal-government to the standing-Berlin-relocation, and the standing-Reichstag-building reconstruction was the standing-central single architectural-element of the standing-Berlin-relocation-programme.
THE MANCHESTER BOY
Norman Robert Foster was born at 23 Crocus Street in the standing-working-class Levenshulme district of southern Manchester on the first of June 1935, only child of Robert Foster, a standing-Manchester-Ferranti-Engineering electrical-engineer, and Lilian Smith. He was raised in the standing-Levenshulme-and-Reddish working-class south-Manchester terraced-housing, was schooled at Burnage Grammar School in southern Manchester, and on the standing-1951 school-leaving-at-sixteen took the standing-Manchester Town Hall junior-treasurer's-office clerkship as the standing-first-employment. He completed the standing-1953-to-1956 standing-National-Service in the standing Royal Air Force (the standing-RAF Padgate-Eastleigh standing-postings of the standing-RAF Education-Branch on the standing-aircraft-electronics standing-training-and-instructor-position), and on the standing-1956 RAF-discharge took the standing-Manchester architectural-firm John E. Beardshaw and Partners junior-architectural-assistant position in his standing twenty-first year.
He took the standing-Manchester University architectural-degree across 1956 to 1961 on the standing-self-funded part-time-and-full-time-architectural-school standing-arrangement (Foster took the standing-Manchester architectural-degree on his own resources from his standing-Beardshaw-and-Partners architectural-assistant salary across the standing-five-year part-time-and-full-time mix-arrangement, the standing-foundational standing-working-class architectural-degree-route of his generation), graduated with the standing-first-class-honours architectural-degree in 1961 in his standing twenty-sixth year, won the standing-Henry Fellowship to Yale University Graduate School of Architecture on the strength of the standing-Manchester-degree, and took the standing-Master of Architecture degree at Yale across 1961-1962 under the standing-faculty of Paul Rudolph and Vincent Scully.
TEAM 4 AND FOSTER + PARTNERS
He co-founded the standing-Team 4 architectural-partnership at London in 1963 with Richard Rogers, Su Brumwell and Wendy Cheesman (Foster's standing-Yale-Graduate-School standing-classmate, his standing-future first-wife from 1964 marriage, and his standing-Foster-Partners co-founder), took the standing-Team-4 early-architectural-commissions across the standing-1963-to-1967 period (the standing-Reliance Controls factory at Swindon 1965, the standing-Creek Vean House at Feock in Cornwall 1966), and on the standing-1967 standing-Team-4-dissolution co-founded the standing-Foster-Associates architectural-partnership with Wendy Cheesman in 1967, in his standing-thirty-second year. The standing-Foster-Associates partnership (renamed Foster + Partners in 1992) has been the standing-Foster architectural-firm continuously to the present.
He took the standing-leading-international-architectural-commissions across the standing-1970s-to-1990s standing-Foster-Associates-and-Foster-Partners career: the standing-Willis Faber and Dumas insurance-headquarters at Ipswich (1975), the standing-Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia at Norwich (1978), the standing-Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters at Hong Kong (1985, the standing-Hong Kong-and-Shanghai-Bank-tower that became the standing-foundational-Foster international-recognition project), the standing-Renault Distribution Centre at Swindon (1982), the standing-Stansted Airport Terminal at London Stansted Airport (1991), and the standing-Carre d'Art-Mediatheque at Nimes in France (1993).
THE REICHSTAG COMMISSION
The Bundestag Council convened the standing-Reichstag-reconstruction-architectural-competition in late 1992 on the standing-Bonn-to-Berlin federal-capital-relocation decision of the standing-twentieth of June 1991 Bundestag-vote. The competition opened in March 1992 with the standing-eighty-international-architectural-firm invited-shortlist; the standing-competition-shortlist of three architectural-firms was identified in October 1992 as Foster + Partners (the standing-Foster-team submission), Pi de Bruijn (Dutch architectural-firm), and Santiago Calatrava (Spanish-Swiss architectural-firm). The standing-jury-decision in February 1993 selected the standing-Foster-Partners submission on the strength of the standing-glass-dome-and-walkable-observation-deck design that put the standing-democratic-public physically-above the standing-Bundestag-parliamentary-chamber.
Foster's standing-original-1992 submission did not include the standing-walkable-observation-dome; the standing-original-Foster-submission had proposed a standing-flat-roof reconstruction. The standing-walkable-observation-dome design was added by Foster in the standing-1993-design-development phase on the standing-Bundestag-jury request that the standing-reconstruction include a standing-visible-democratic-symbol of the standing-public-political-engagement above the standing-parliamentary-chamber. Foster developed the standing-double-spiral inverted-cone forty-metre-diameter glass-and-steel walkable-observation-dome design across the standing-1993-to-1995 standing-Foster-Partners design-development phase, with the standing-double-spiral standing-public-ramp that admitted approximately three thousand standing-public-visitors per day to the standing-walkable dome-interior.
THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL
The standing-Reichstag-reconstruction-construction ran across the standing-1995-to-1999 standing-Foster-Partners on-site construction-period under the standing-Foster-Partners on-site project-architect Mark Braun and the standing-German-contractor consortium. The standing-construction was completed on the standing-fifteenth of April 1999, and the standing-formal opening-ceremony was held on the morning of the standing-nineteenth-of-April 1999 in the standing-newly-reconstructed Bundestag-chamber. The standing-Federal-President Roman Herzog and the standing-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder presided over the standing-Bundestag-formal-opening-session; Foster was present in the standing-official-architectural-guest-position alongside the standing-Bundestag-Council Vice-President Wolfgang Thierse.
The standing-walkable-observation-dome opened to the standing-public on the same morning of the nineteenth of April 1999 with the standing-first standing-public-visitor admission at the standing-eleven-AM standing-public-opening-time. The standing-public has continued to walk the standing-dome continuously since the standing-1999 opening at the standing-three-thousand-visitors-per-day standing-rate (approximately one million visitors per year, the standing-most-visited single architectural-site in modern Berlin). The standing-Bundestag has met in the standing-reconstructed Reichstag-chamber continuously since the standing-1999 opening.
THE STANDING-FOSTER LATER CAREER
Foster was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1983 in his standing-forty-eighth year, was knighted in 1990, was created Baron Foster of Thames Bank in 1999 (the standing-life-peerage that came with the standing-Reichstag-completion), was awarded the standing-Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1999 (the standing-international architectural-profession's highest single recognition, awarded in the same year as the standing-Reichstag opening), and was admitted to the Order of Merit in 1997. He has continued to lead Foster + Partners across the standing-twenty-six years since the Reichstag opening, has produced the standing-major-architectural-commissions of the standing-2000s-and-2010s (the standing-Millennium Bridge at London (2000), the standing-Swiss Re Building at London known as the Gherkin (2004), the standing-Wembley Stadium reconstruction at London (2007), the standing-Apple Park headquarters at Cupertino California (2017)), and remains the standing-leading single living British architect of his generation. The Foster name in modern world architecture carries the weight of the morning at the Reichstag on the nineteenth of April 1999.