British architect Norman Foster has revealed that if he could visit any building from history, it would be Crystal Palace, which he cites as a major influence on high-tech architecture.
Speaking to Dezeen during an interview for our high-tech architecture series, Foster explained that the modular iron and glass building designed by Joseph Paxton would be top of his list of buildings he could visit.
"I've recently been asked, if there's one building from the past that you could visit, what would it be"" Foster told Dezeen.
"And I remember saying it would be the Great Exhibition, it would be the Crystal Palace of Paxton."
Norman Foster described Crystal Palace as "truly high tech"
Foster, who was one of the key proponents of the high-tech architecture style, made the statement while explaining that the style had its routes in expressed structures of both the Chicago School and British buildings. "I guess what I'm doing is I'm tracing a lineage, which is about structure, which is about the expression of structure, and perhaps rediscovering something from the past. And not just the American past, but our own past," said Foster.
According to Foster Crystal Palace was the birth of modern architecture
Foster traces the routes of high-tech, and all modern architecture, to the Crystal Palace, which was built in London to house the Great Exhibition in 1851.
"That really was the birth of modern architecture, of pre-fabrication, of soa...