Norman Foster Lecture at Ferrari's headquarters in Maranello

Dear colleagues, welcome everyone. It is a great honor today for me to introduce to you Lord Norman Foster, one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th and 21st centuries. Norman Foster is founder and executive chairman of Foster + Partners, a global studio of architecture, urbanism, and design rooted in sustainability. Over more than five decades, the practice has pioneered a sustainable approach to architecture and urbanism through a wide range of work from master plans to offices, cultural buildings, airports, and industrial design. He has been awarded architecture's highest accolades including the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the Premium Imperiale Award for Architecture in Japan, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, and the AIA Gold Medal. He is president of the Norman Foster Foundation based in Madrid, and in 1999 he was honored with a life peerage, becoming Lord Foster of Thames Bank. This is a historic moment for us. To meet a celebrity like Norman Foster is a truly extraordinary privilege. It would take too long to describe all the masterpieces that Norman Foster has created, but today we are talking about encounters. I must say that although I too met Lord Foster for the first time today, in reality throughout my life I've had many encounters with these masterpieces, starting from my readings as a young man. My studies led me to discover the projects of the world's greatest architects, and Norman Foster's works were the most captivating and fascinating of all. Then there are the experiences that I lived in person. I remember that in Barcelona I lived in a neighborhood from which I could see the Torre Diagonal, a masterpiece, an example of almost science fiction-like architecture. It looked like an object landed from space. During the period I worked in Germany, at my office furnished with the Nemos table, it was a piece of unparalleled technological and futuristic beauty. Working at that desk made my days better. Then there was my visit to the Reichstag in Berlin where Norman Foster was commissioned to build the famous dome. It is an extremely symbolic structure, beautiful from an architectural and artistic perspective, and incredibly intriguing in terms of the solutions adopted. I must admit that Norman Foster's projects often are a source of inspiration for us designers, a way to envision the future. An example of this is the Ferrari F80 that you saw downstairs, a supercar that aims to capture the essence of a very ambitious project and did so with an architectural and futuristic approach. This brings me to a statement by Lord Foster, one in particular that is as relevant and meaningful for us at Ferrari: 'As an architect, you design for the present with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.' Now I welcome Lord Norman Foster, thank him for accepting our invitation, and give him the floor. Thank you.