The most amazing lesson in aerodynamics I ever had was the day I climbed a thermal in a glider at the same time as an eagle. I witnessed, close up, effortlessness and lightness combined with strength, precision and determination.
Interpretation
The quote highlights a profound experience of observing the effortless flight of an eagle, symbolizing grace and determination in nature.
In this quote, Norman Foster reflects on an extraordinary moment when he shared the sky with an eagle while gliding. This experience allowed him to witness firsthand the harmony of strength and precision in the eagle's flight, demonstrating how nature embodies both effortlessness and determination. It serves as a reminder of the beauty and power found in the natural world, inspiring us to appreciate the lessons it can teach about resilience and grace.
In practice
During a nature documentary presentation.
We now think it hilarious that medieval streets were used as open sewers. Equally, our descendants will say: 'You won't believe this, but people were once allowed to hurl a couple of tons of dangerous metal around smashing into each other.'
As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.
Every time I've flown an aircraft, or visited a steelworks, or watched a panel-beater at work, I've learned something new that can be applied to buildings.
Everything we design is a response to the specific climate and culture of a particular place.
It takes a lot of effort to make a building look effortless.
Architecture is an expression of values.
The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know that the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing, that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence.
When you recognize the sacredness, the beauty, the incredible stillness and dignity in which a flower or a tree exists, you add something to the flower or the tree. Through your recognition, your awareness, nature too comes to know itself. It comes to know its own beauty and sacredness through you.
To stay in one place and watch the seasons come and go is tanatmount to constant travel: One is traveling with the earth.
There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.
Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.
We who are gathered here may represent a particular delete, not of money and power, but of concern for the earth for the earth's sake.
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