Saturating Constructions for Normed Spaces

We prove several results of the following type: given finite dimensional normed space V there exists another space X with log (dim X) = O(log (dim V)) and such that every subspace (or quotient) of X, whose dimension is not “too small,” contains a further subspace isometric to V. This sheds new light on the structure of such large subspaces or quotients (resp., large sections or projections of convex bodies) and allows to solve several problems stated in the 1980s by V. Milman. The proofs are probabilistic and depend on careful analysis of images of convex sets under Gaussian linear maps.