What was more, no knowledgeable observer would have predicted its achievement five years earlier. Time after time in Hay’s administration of the Department of State the Panama Canal had appeared to be doomed. Yet at each point of crisis it had been rescued and put back on the long road to realization. Its history seemed to prove that despite the complexity of the world and the domination of chance and error in human affairs, a man with energy and enormous fixity of purpose could now and then shape the course of history.

ACT ONE: THE COURSE OF EMPIRE Scene I. Washington, December, 1898

One of the many callers on President William McKinley in the crowded days just before the opening of the Fifty-fifth Congress was a partner in the New22 September 2016

Norman Foster awarded the prestigious Scopus Award by Friends of The Hebrew University

Lord Foster has received the Scopus Award – the highest honour conferred by the Friends of The Hebrew University. It is awarded to individuals who make an exceptional cultural contribution and demonstrate humanitarian concerns throughout their careers, and symbolises the university’s highest ideals.

The award ceremony was held at a fundraising event at Campus Biotech in Geneva, in the presence of Lily Safra – benefactor of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, which has been designed by the practice, Professor Menahem Ben Sasson – President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gültin Ephrati – President of the Swiss Friends of UHJ-Switzerland, and artist Michal Rovner, with Phillippe Amon offering the Laudatio to