Norman Foster, 90: This is his relationship with Spanish actress Elena Ochoa.

A few weeks ago, Norman Foster blew out no less than 90 candles on his birthday cake. Far from thoughts of retirement, the acclaimed architect born in 1935 in Stockport, a suburb approximately 10 kilometers from central Manchester, has recently been chosen—along with artist Yinka Shonibare and landscape designer Michel Desvigne, as explained by Vanity Fair— by a commemorative committee to create a representation of everything Queen Elizabeth II meant to the United Kingdom. A tribute, however, which is not the first in her lifetime.

"I still have everything ahead of me," he said to celebrate his new age in an interview with Architects Journal . A maxim that has always accompanied him and that would be incomprehensible today without the presence at his side of the woman with whom he has shared more than the last quarter of a century of his life and with whom he rediscovered the desire to continue creating and designing some of the most emblematic buildings in their respective cities, Elena Ochoa, alongside whom he collected such important awards as his Pritzker Prize and the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 2009.

It is precisely with the renowned Galician psychologist, art patron, and curator—she was born in A Pobra de Trives, in the province of Ourense, almost 67 years ago —that he spends his day-to-day life between the United Kingdom, where they have an impressive penthouse in London overlooking the Thames and where their architectural studio's headquarters are located; Switzerland, with their mansion in St. Moritz, designed as a winter retreat by Foster himself in the Chesa Futura building; until they sold it in 2006, in a 17th-century villa east of Nice, in Provence, France; and Spain, specifically, Madrid.

The Norman Foster Foundation, a space for architectural research and education, has been located in the renowned Chamberí neighborhood since 2017. Its headquarters are in the renowned Duke of Plasencia mansion, constructed in 1912 by Joaquín Saldaña on a property measuring around 1,900 square meters valued at more than €12 million (Norman acquired it in 2013 for €9.2 million). Foster remodeled it for his organization, which carries out projects on a global scale. The capital is also home to Ivorypress, the art gallery and publishing house that Elena Fernández-Ferreiro López-Ochoa (her full name) opened in 1996.

Elena, who currently also holds the vice presidency of the Foster Foundation and the presidency of the board of the Serpentine Galleries in London, as well as being a member of the board of MoMA, was known as a television personality. Chicho Ibáñez Serrador asked her in the early 1990s to host one of the most groundbreaking programs, due to its natural and fresh approach to what had been a taboo subject. "Let's Talk About Sex" was a landmark on national television, but that's not how she and the architect would meet.

It all happened while she was teaching as an emeritus professor at King's College London, after having separated in 1994 from the writer, columnist, and urban planner Luis Racionero. "I remember walking into a room full of people dressed in black and seeing him, in the back, wearing a beige corduroy suit," Elena recounted about that first meeting in 1994, at a gala dinner in Toledo. Love at first sight was such that just a couple of years later, in 1996, they married in an intimate ceremony with hardly any guests.

It was not Norman Foster's first marriage. In the mid-1960s, he had married his partner at Team 4—the studio founded in 1965 that preceded the current Foster and Partners— Wendy Cheesman, with whom he had two children and adopted two more : Ti, who is now a renowned artist, mainly in the United Kingdom, Cal, Steve, and Jay, all of whom have chosen to live in complete anonymity. Unfortunately, in 1989, Wendy died of cancer. In 1991, Foster remarried designer Sabiha Rumani Malik, divorcing four years later. She would later auction off her wedding and anniversary rings, designed by her ex-husband, and donate the proceeds to charity.

Norman and Elena reportedly have two children: Paola, 26, and Eduardo, 23. The eldest studied Art History and Architecture at Harvard University, graduating in 2022. Her extensive resume, according to her LinkedIn profile, has led her, despite her age, to work as an intern at Harper's Bazaar and various art galleries in London—the White Chapel Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts—in Venice, at the Alma Zevi and Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and at the Vito Schnabel Gallery in Switzerland. She has also worked alongside her mother at her publishing house and at the Serpentine Galleries. She is also a trustee of the Norman Foster Foundation and last year was appointed assistant professor at the Yale School of Architecture.

For his part, Eduardo, educated at one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the world, is currently studying Real Estate and Urban Planning at University College London, having previously spent a year studying Business Administration at New York University's Stern School of Business. According to the website of his father's foundation, of which he is also a trustee, he already has work experience— Vanity Fair details that, according to the information, he had already founded and successfully managed several companies by the age of 14—and currently works for Generali Real Estate.