Norman Foster to deliver keynote at Dezeen Awards 2026 party

Norman Foster will deliver the keynote speech at the Dezeen Awards 2026 party, held at the Royal Opera House in London on 16 November.

In his address, Foster will focus on the future of architecture, drawing on an oeuvre that Dezeen describes as marking him out as one of the most influential architects of his generation.

The nonagenarian leads the global firm Foster + Partners as executive chairman and serves as president of the Norman Foster Foundation. His career spans more than 60 years, with early landmark projects including the HSBC Building in Hong Kong and London Stansted Airport. More recent work includes Apple Park in the USA and the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi. This year he unveiled the final designs for memorial statues and a glass bridge dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II.

Foster is also among the most decorated architects in history. He has received the RIBA Gold Medal, the AIA Gold Medal, the Pritzker Architecture Prize and the Praemium Imperiale award. Three buildings designed by his studio have won the Stirling Prize — most recently the Bloomberg HQ in London, a project described by Dezeen as the largest stone building built in the City of London since St Paul's Cathedral.

Beyond the practice, Foster has built institutions aimed at the discipline's future. The Norman Foster Foundation and the Norman Foster Institute for Sustainable Cities, launched in 2024, both promote interdisciplinary thinking and research intended to help new generations of architects, designers and urbanists anticipate what lies ahead, as well as educating future civic leaders.

Foster is no stranger to this year's awards process. He joined the architecture judging panel for Dezeen Awards 2026 alongside Annabelle Selldorf, Daniel Libeskind, Ma Yansong and Amanda Levete, assessing projects submitted from more than 90 countries.

Last week, Dezeen revealed all 392 shortlisted projects. The architecture shortlist was announced on Monday, the interiors shortlist on Tuesday, followed by the design shortlist.

Readers can now vote for their favourite shortlisted projects in this year's public vote. Among the contenders are a mosque with a perforated, blanket-like roof of stone-clad steelwork, a conversion of an over-century-old dockside warehouse, and a modular furniture system made up of upholstered squishy balls.

Dezeen will announce the public vote winners across its social media channels ahead of the party on 16 November. Tickets for the event are on sale, with discounted tickets at £249 available to studios shortlisted for this year's awards.

The ninth edition of the annual awards runs in partnership with the global technology company Trimble. With Foster — a judge, a three-time Stirling Prize winner and the author of six decades of built work — taking the stage, the keynote is set to frame the awards ceremony with a career-long perspective on where architecture goes next.