CEC Award, Goya Award, San Sebastián Audience AwardBorn on the wrong side of the tracks in Manchester, England, Norman Foster rose from humble beginnings to become one of the world’s most famous architects and a British Lord. How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? is an unsentimental look at the Pritzker Prize winner’s career, narrated by Deyan Sudjic, director of London’s Design Museum. Touching on Foster’s days at Yale under Paul Rudolph and tutelage under Buckminster Fuller—whose question to the impressionable up-and-coming architect gives the documentary its name—the film uses breathtaking cinematography to capture Foster’s best-known works: HSBC’s Hong Kong headquarters, the reconstruction of Berlin’s Reichstag, and the Millau Viaduct in France. A pilot himself, he transformed airport architecture with Stansted and, more recently, Beijing’s mammoth Capital International Airport. Guided by a work ethic instilled in him by his blue-collar parents, Foster—well into his seventies—continues to cycle and compete in cross-country skiing marathons, while running a global practice that reached 1,400 employees before the market crash. He is a man who expects no less of himself than he does from his buildings.
