Foster accused of making 'biggest mistake of his career' in Bulgaria

Lord Foster has been accused of making “the biggest mistake of his career” in designing a €1bn (£750m) carbon-neutral eco-resort in Bulgaria.

Protestors in the Eastern European country have said that Foster's resort will destroy the flora and fauna of the last remaining undeveloped stretch of the Black Sea coast.

The Black Sea Gardens will be a 219ha development of five hill towns dotted with lakes, parks and other leisure attractions.

Some 15,000 people will live in new communities named Sky Village, Wilderness Village, Meadow Village, Cape Village and Sea Village.

Construction is expected to start on Sky Village next year, but various campaign groups are attempting to stop the development, with one promising to camp out on the beach when the bulldozers roll in.

Todor Karastoyanov, a protestor, told the Guardian newspaper: “I ask myself whether Norman Foster really knows what he's getting himself into. We want try to stop him from making the biggest mistake of his career by building here, because it's immoral and he might not know that.”

A spokesperson for Foster + Partners declined to comment on the reports but developer Projects Ltd told the newspaper the resort was designed to counter the communist-era tower blocks along the rest of the coast.

Director Georgi Stanishev said: “What we as the Bulgarian team of architects and Foster + Partners is doing is absolutely adequate to the legislation and the laws of this country.”

Gus Alexander wrote of the scheme on building.co.uk in January: “It reminds me of a very low-key resort called 'Monadnock' described in Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead', a preposterous tale of an architect reinventing architectural civilisation on his own by going back to first principles.”