Your Favorite Architect Had a First Job, Too

Welcome to Origin Story, a series that chronicles the lesser-known histories of designs that have shaped how we live.

The stories architects tell about their oeuvre often begin with a building: a first or formative early project that set a stylistic scaffolding for their subsequent works. But the source of a designer’s methods and ideas can sometimes be traced much further back. Here, we unpack the unexpected gigs that gave some of the world’s most famous architects their starts.

Norman Foster’s Urban Education

In his teens, renowned British architect Norman Foster worked a string of jobs that gave him intimate exposure to the logistics of urban life: He was a trainee in the Treasurer’s Department at Manchester Town Hall and later put himself through architecture school as an ice-cream deliveryman and a nightclub bouncer. A fascination with the rhythms of cities is apparent in one of Foster’s earliest projects, the (since-demolished) Reliance Controls factory, which was his last joint project with his Team 4 colleagues Richard Rogers, Su Brumwell, and Wendy Cheesman before he broke off and formed his own firm. Rather than treating industry as something to hide, the building celebrated efficiency, with adaptable workspaces and prefabricated metal components left exposed. The project established themes the Pritzker and Stirling Prize winner would return to throughout his career in his designs: a deep dedication to observing and servicing the social milieu of cities.

Tadao Ando’s Observational Designs

Decades before he became a Pritzker Prize winner, architect Tadao Ando spent his youth watching construction workers renovate his family home in Osaka and observing a neighborhood woodworker after school. He worked as a truck driver and a professional boxer in his teens, fighting a dozen matches under the name Great Ando, before trips to traditional Japanese temples and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo inspired him to pursue architecture. He educated himself through apprenticeships, books, and extensive travel to Europe and the U.S. in his 20s. In 1976, he completed one of his first major commissions on a narrow lot in Osaka’s Sumiyoshi ward. The Azuma House reimagined the traditional machiya, or row house, as a minimalist concrete building organized around an open-air courtyard that made each room attached to it expand within the slim structure. In a 2020 interview, Ando described a link between his boxing background and architecture career, saying: "Creation is fighting."