In 1983, Sir Norman Foster received the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture and in 1990 received a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours. In 1991 he received the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion Award in Barcelona, the Gold Medal of the French Academy in Paris and an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London. His most famous buildings have been built abroad - the Barcelona Tower, the Bilbao Metro and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (itself the subject of several books). But 1991 saw the opening of Stansted Airport. This book investigates the design and construction of a building whose confidence reflects an elevated view of British architecture that looks confidently towards the 21st century. Ken Powell is the former secretary of the Save Britain's Heritage conservation group. He is the architecture correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and also writes for Country Life.