As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.

Foster frames architecture as a time-bridging discipline. A building must answer immediate needs—program, budget, technology, and social use—yet it cannot ignore the accumulated lessons of history: local context, typologies, craft traditions, and the long record of what endures or fails. At the same time, architects inevitably project into a future they cannot fully predict: changing climates, demographics, work patterns, and cultural values. The quote therefore argues for humility and adaptability—designing with memory and responsibility, but also with flexibility, resilience, and openness to unforeseen change. It encapsulates a modernist-yet-contextual ethos often associated with Foster’s practice.