Renowned UK architect Norman Foster has won a competition to design Britain’s national memorial to the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Famed for designs that have fused technology and nature and transformed modern cityscapes, Foster, 90, said the opportunity was an “honour and a privilege”.
The memorial will include a statue of the queen, a keen horsewoman, on horseback and another of her arm in arm with her late husband Prince Philip.
Elizabeth, Britain’s longest serving monarch, died in September 2022 aged 96 after more than 70 years on the throne.
She was was succeeded by her eldest son, who became King Charles III.
The memorial in St James’s Park next to Buckingham Palace will also include a glass bridge inspired by the queen’s wedding tiara.
“At the heart of our masterplan is a translucent bridge symbolic of her majesty as a unifying force, bringing together nations, countries, the Commonwealth, charities and the armed forces,” Foster said in a statement.
Foster has been shaping urban landscapes since the 1960s and won the Pritzker Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in architecture, in 1999.
His statement projects include Apple’s giant ring-shaped headquarters in California, London’s Wembley Stadium and Millennium Bridge, and Berlin’s Reichstag.
Foster was personally appointed to the Order of Merit by the Queen in 1997, an elite group of no more than 24 people honoured for their contribution to the arts, learning, literature and science.
The final plans for the memorial will be unveiled next year.
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© Agence France-Presse
