Hello everyone. Welcome to this Espacio Inspira. I am Yolanda and I'm fortunate today to be joined by Lord Foster, one of the most influential, if not the most influential architects nowadays. And a reference in sustainable architecture and design. Welcome Mr. Foster, Norman. A privilege to be with you today. It is impossible to summarize your activity in a few words. You are an icon in architecture and have been a precursor of many advances in this field over many decades. This has seen you receive different awards such as the gold medal from the American Institute of Architects, the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1999 and the Prince of Asturias Award of the Arts in 2009. So, a long career, a very fruitful career, but let's start at the beginning. Did you always dream of being an architect? How did you have the idea of becoming an architect?
I've always, as long as I can remember, been fascinated by buildings. But I left school at 16 and I went to start as an office boy in the town hall in Manchester. And that was really my first encounter with architecture. I mean, an amazing building, a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic. I can remember the spaces moving and so on. But it was a long circuitous route to finally discover that my passion for buildings I could actually convert into studying architecture. So, that was a revelation and in many ways I've never, as it were, looked back. So always interested, but a late realization that I could actually convert that into a career.
That's amazing. So, changing of subject, around 30,000 people fall ill or die each year in Spain due to the combined action of four environmental factors that affect health. Air pollution, high temperatures, a lack of green spaces, and lack of sustainable mobility options. According to the study on health and environment at the University of Navarra that has found. So, the importance of urban planning and architecture to create a more sustainable world has been a constant element in your work, in your career. And would you say the same about health, human health? How the two are combined?
Everything that you've described is connected. It's all about design. Design can bring nature into our everyday lives. If you bring nature and you bring trees, you bring shading. You also absorb carbon dioxide, so you refresh the air. You reduce the temperature. And if your mobility is driven by clean energy, and it's not just going electric, because if the electricity that you squirt into the battery comes from a dirty source, it's a dirty car. So, you have to go back to energy, and everything is about energy. Clean energy is the answer. It's interesting in this room this morning I was with one of the professors teaching the master's class in sustainable cities. And Ian Golding was citing Shenzhen. And he said, 'I've been to Shenzhen and I've seen the future. It's quiet. I can hear the birds. I can hear nature.' Because the energy is clean. It's all electric, nuclear powered, the cleanest, safest by statistics by a huge margin. So, all of these themes that you're talking about, I think there is a greater awareness of those issues, which is good news. I couldn't agree more.
Um, can we say therefore that for better or for worse, architecture design impacts our health and it can be either healing or it can be damaging?
Absolutely. I mean, the quality of urban design directly affects the quality of our lives, materially, physically, mentally, whether we feel good. So, they're all connected. Mobility is directly related to obesity. If you're walking somewhere, you're healthier. It's also more pleasant, more enjoyable. If it's a neighborhood community which is walkable, then you're going to combat loneliness. And these are killers. Loneliness, obesity. So, the healthy city, the healthy neighborhood not only is good for our health, we actually feel better. It's more enjoyable. It's a return in many ways to the traditional, if you take London, the high street, if you take Paris and its recent labeling of the walkable city as being the city. So, within 15 minutes, you're in reach of everything, even if it's not your place of work, then it's a public transport kind of portal where you can very quickly get your place of work. So, the rediscovery of the pedestrian-friendly walkable city, that's like a revolution, but it's going back to a past where you have all the benefits and none of the problems.
And it creates even happier environments for people, right?
Absolutely. And if you take away the issues of health or the carbon footprint, and you look statistically where people want to live, work, and visit, they're always those kind of cities. In any survey, whether it's a magazine or a serious consulting firm, time and time again, it's that kind of city.
As I mentioned before, in 2009, you received the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. That prize was awarded for, and I read literally, 'Universally acclaimed work that combines aesthetic quality, intellectual reflection, and dialogue between territory and citizenship through an original mastery of space, light, and matter. Norman Foster, architect of the global era, brilliantly anticipates the only possible polis in the 21st century at the service of sustainable development and personal and social freedom.' Do you feel represented by these words?
They're very flattering. And I'm very moved. I think it all adds up to a humanistic, holistic view of design where you learn from the past for the needs of today, but you seek to anticipate the future. And in many ways, it's almost a cliche. If you want to look far ahead, you first look far back. And if you look far back, and you think about the city which is friendly, the neighborhood which has a degree of intimacy, where people know each other, which combats loneliness, a place where you can walk to everything that you need, rather than having to get into a car. So, that's at the same time reducing the carbon footprint. A city which is dependent on the car consumes twice the amount of energy, twice the amount of pollution. So, this quest for a clean neighborhood, a clean building... Perhaps the biggest difference from when I started in practice some seven decades ago was that I passionately believed that if you had a view, if you had natural light, if you had a contact with nature, then that was going to be good for you. The difference now is that we know it scientifically. Then it was subjective. Now it's proven. If you look at the studies, the research by many different agencies, the Harvard School of Public Health where they've created a facility, and they can simulate different kinds of interior environments, and measure the performance of people doing tests in those different environments. We now know... even take, I mean, come right back to health, the hospital and the patient's bedroom. We know after surgery, if somebody recovers in a room with a view, they leave hospital a day earlier. They consume less painkillers. So, it's not just subjective, it's now proven. With the right kind of buildings and the right kind of cities, we live longer, we're happier, we're healthier.
