The architect joins David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Frank Gehry, Leonard Bernstein, John Gielgud, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Peter Brook as a recipient of the prestigious award.
Lord Foster of Thames Bank has designed more than 100 buildings and projects worldwide, among them Hong Kong airport, the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts in Norwich, the Millennium Bridge, London and the Reichstag in Berlin.
Other 2002 winners in the arts are Sigmar Polke for painting, Giuliano Vangi for sculpture, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, for music and Jean-Luc Godard for film and theatre.
Lord Foster said: "It is a great honour to receive this award and to join such august and illustrious company, which includes so many esteemed colleagues and friends.
"I am particularly delighted to receive this honour because I feel such a great affinity with Japanese art and architecture.
"The time I have spent working in Japan has provided some of the richest experiences of my life. I accept this award with tremendous pride."
Born in Manchester in 1935 and brought up in the run-down Levenshulme district, Lord Foster attended Manchester University School of Architecture and City Planning, before studying for an MA at Yale, in the United States.
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