iF Design Lifetime Achievement Award 2025
Lord Norman Foster
The Lifetime Achievement Award aims to honor icons who have changed the tone of what is considered excellence in design: People that have made history and shaped the design world as we know it today! We want to honor these selected icons for their outstanding contributions to the global design community.
This year's iF Design Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Lord Norman Foster!
Lord Norman Foster: "Design is the very essence of the quality of our lives!" - Watch his speech in the video.
Lord Norman Foster receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award 2025. From left to right: Uwe Cremering, Lord Norman Foster, Fritz Frenkler. Watch the video.
The renowned British designer and architect Lord Norman Foster designed more than 80 products, product systems, vehicles, and over 100 iconic buildings such as ‘The Gherkin’ in London, the Millennium Tower in Japan and the glass dome of the Reichstag in Berlin.
His work has had a lasting impact on the world of architecture. As Prof. Fritz Frenkler put it in his laudatory speech: "His works have a soul. A calm precision that makes us feel that someone has really thought about the human-being."
Hear it in Lord Norman Fosters own inspiring words in his personal and emotional speech in the video!
On stage, Lord Norman Foster gave insights into some of his projects, in particular his special relationship with the design of the Berlin Reichstag, where the German parliament comes together. The award ceremony took place only about 10 minutes away from it, so his insights were even more impressive for the audience.
"After reunification, Lord Norman Foster reimagined the Reichstag dome in Berlin. He brought light to a place from which darkness once came. The dome: light for peace, freedom and democracy. His part is done here. Ours begins: to preserve this light", says Fritz Frenkler.
With his studio ‘Foster + Partners’, which operates from 16 locations worldwide, and the Norman Foster
Foundation in Madrid, Foster is also committed to promoting young talent.
For more impressions, click on the photo gallery and go to the section about the Lifetime Achievement Award.