Architizer News reported by Kelly Chan
Important news flash for parents who want their children to be famous, successful architects: Of this year’s list of the 2,000 wealthiest people in Britain, only one of them is an architect. That one architect — surprise — is Sir Norman Foster.
Last year, Foster was joined by his colleague Zaha Hadid in Britain’s “Rich List,” though Hadid was absent from the elite manifest this year. But coming up strong at #522, Foster is keeping the myth of the moneyed, skyscraper-designing professional alive and well despite having seen a recent dip in profits at his firm Foster + Partners.
According to Dezeen, the architect has an estimated personal fortune of almost $230 million, a chunk of which comes from selling 40% of his practice in 2007 for $180 million. Foster continues to hold a 45% stake in the firm, which has its hand in everything, from the controversial renovation of the New York Public Library main branch, to the wildly over-budget Apple Campus in Cupertino, California, to a fantastical proposal to 3D-print houses on the moon. Foster was even the subject of a 2010 documentary called “How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?”, which presented the architect’s projects as elegantly designed solutions to urban problems and reaffirmed that Foster is one of the few architects the general public knows by name.
