The Twentieth Century Society is set to submit Foster Associates’ Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts for listing.

Foster Associates’ 1978 gallery, in the grounds of Denys Lasdun’s University of East Anglia in Norwich, was funded by Robert and Lisa Sainsbury, and houses works of art by Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon.

Twentieth Century Society senior caseworker Jon Wright said: “The building is more than 30 years old and Lord Foster won’t be around forever to make the high-grade alterations that he’s done in the past.

“We feel strongly that now is the right time to submit it for listing. It is a piece of contemporary architecture that’s just awesome.”

Wright said he hoped architecture minister John Penrose would list the building as grade I or at least grade II*.

“It’s an example of world-class hi-tech architecture, like the Lloyd’s building in the City of London,” he added.

Writing in Witold Rybczynski’s The Biography of a Building, Norman Foster said he originally conceived the Sainsbury Centre as two separate buildings — one for the university, the other privately sponsored by the Sainsburys to house their art collection — but it evolved to become a single building.

“The single building created greater cross-fertilisation… it also provided greater flexibility for changes of use over time… and was more sustainable than a collection of separate structures,” he wrote.

In 1991 Foster added the Crescent Wing , and in May 2006 a new gallery linking the original building and the new wing was introduced, alongside new education and studio spaces.

Sainsbury Centre project architect Birkin Haward said the building remained “terrific” despite the changes it had gone through.

“The spirit it was conceived in has continued,” he said. “There are protocols in place to make sure it carries on looking nice and remains a pleasure to visit. I went there this summer — it’s fantastic and a great resource for that part of the world.”

Sainsbury Centre director Paul Greenhalgh said: “It is one of Norman Foster’s greatest buildings and one of his first works of public architecture. We are all immensely proud of it, and committed to keeping it in pristine order.”

Foster’s 1975 Willis Building in Ipswich was listed grade I in 1991.