Moshe Safdie, CC, FAIA is an IsraeliAmerican architect, urban designer, educator, theorist,
and author.
He is most identified with Habitat 67, which paved the way for his international career.
Biography Moshe Safdie was born in Haifa.
His family moved to Montreal, Canada, in 1953.
In 1959, Safdie married Nina Nusynowicz.
The couple had two children, a daughter and a son.
His son Oren Safdie is a playwright who has written several plays about architecture including
Private Jokes, Public Places.
His daughter Taal is an architect in San Diego, a partner of the firm Safdie Rabines Architects.
In 1961, Safdie graduated from McGill University with a degree in architecture.
In 1981, Safdie married Michal Ronnen, a photographer, with whom he has two daughters, Carmelle and
Yasmin.
Carmelle Safdie is an artist, and Yasmin Safdie is a social worker.
Safdie is the uncle of Dov Charney, founder and CEO of American Apparel.
Architecture career After apprenticing with Louis Kahn in Philadelphia,
Safdie returned to Montreal to oversee the master plan for Expo 67.
In 1964, he established his own firm to undertake Habitat 67, an adaptation of his McGill thesis.
Habitat 67, which pioneered the design and implementation of three-dimensional, prefabricated
units for living, was a central feature of Expo 67 and an important development in architectural
history.
He was awarded the 1967 Construction Man of the Year Award from the Engineering News Record
and the Massey Medal for Architecture in Canada for Habitat 67.
In 1970, Safdie opened a branch office in Jerusalem.
Among the projects he has designed in Jerusalem are Yad Vashem and the Alrov Mamilla Quarter,
which includes the Mamilla Mall, David's Village luxury condominiums, and the 5-star Mamilla
Hotel.
In 1978, after teaching at McGill, Ben Gurion, and Yale universities, Safdie moved his main
office to Boston and became director of the Urban Design Program at Harvard University's
Graduate School of Design, until 1984.
From 1984 to 1989, he was the Ian Woodner Professor of Architecture and Urban Design
at Harvard.
Since the early 1990s, Safdie, a citizen of Canada, Israel, and the United States, has
focused on his architectural practice, Safdie Architects, which is based in Somerville,
MA and has branches in Toronto, Jerusalem, and Singapore.
Safdie has designed six of Canada's principal public institutions as well as many other
notable projects around the world, including the Salt Lake City Main Public Library, the
Khalsa Heritage Centre in India, the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort in Singapore,
the United States Institute of Peace headquarters in Washington, DC, the Kauffman Center for
the Performing Arts in Kansas City, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in
Bentonville, Arkansas.
Architectural style Moshe Safdie's works are known for their dramatic
curves, arrays of geometric patterns, use of windows, and key placement of open and
green spaces.
His writings and designs stress the need to create meaningful, vital, and inclusive spaces
that enhance community, with special attention to the essence of a particular locale, geography,
and culture.
He is a self-described modernist.
Awards and recognition Companion of the Order of Canada
Gold Medal, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Richard Neutra Award for Professional Excellence Mt.
Scopus Award for Humanitarianism, Jerusalem In November 2011, Punjab Chief Minister honoured
Safdie at the inauguration ceremony of the Khalsa Heritage Museum.
He said Safdie had studied Sikh religion for two years before designing the heritage museum.
Safdie said he wanted the museum to look 300 years old and he thought he had succeeded
in this objective.
Projects
1967 Habitat 67 at Expo 67 World's Fair, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
1980 Robina Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia 1981 Coldspring New Town, Baltimore, Maryland,
USA 1987 Musée de la Civilisation, Quebec City,
Canada 1988 The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa,
Ontario 1988 Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, Israel
1989 City plan for Modi'in, Israel 1989 The Esplanade condominium complex in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 1991 The Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion of
the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1992 The Class of 1959 Chapel, Harvard Business
School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 1993 Mamilla Centre and David's Village, Jerusalem,
Israel 1994 Former Ottawa City Hall, Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada 1995 Vancouver Library Square, Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada 1995 The Centre in Vancouver for the Performing
Arts, Vancouver, British Columbia 2000 The Exploration Place Science Museum
in Wichita, Kansas, USA 2002 The campus of Hebrew College in Newton,
Massachusetts, USA 2003 Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts,
USA 2003 Main Branch of the Salt Lake City Public
Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA 2003 Eleanor Roosevelt College campus, UC
San Diego, USA 2003 Pantages Tower, Toronto, Canada
2003 Corrour Lodge, Inverness-shire, Scotland 2004 Airside building of Terminal 3, Ben Gurion
International Airport, Israel 2005 Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum,
Jerusalem, Israel 2006 Telfair Museum of Art, Jepson Center
for the Arts, Savannah, Georgia, USA 2007 Terminal 1, Toronto Pearson International
Airport, Canada, with Skidmore Owings Merrill 2008 United States Federal Courthouse, District
of Massachusetts, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA
2008 Headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Washington,
D.C., USA 2009 Asian University for Women, Chittagong,
Bangladesh 2009 Mamilla Mall, Jerusalem, Israel
2010 Yitzhak Rabin Center, Tel Aviv, Israel 2011 Marina Bay Sands, Singapore's second
integrated resort and casino 2011 United States Institute of Peace Headquarters
in Washington, D.C., USA 2011 Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts,
Kansas City, Missouri, USA 2011 Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,
Bentonville, Arkansas, USA 2011 Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex, Anandpur
Sahib, Punjab, India 2012 Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles,
California, USA 2012 Altair, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Published works Beyond Habitat
For Everyone A Garden Form & Purpose
Beyond Habitat by 20 Years Jerusalem: The Future of the Past
The City After the Automobile: An Architect's Vision
Yad Vashem - The Architecture of Memory See also
Architecture of Israel Further reading
Moshe Safdie Volume I Moshe Safdie Volume II
Global Citizen: The Architecture of Moshe Safdie
Reaching for the Sky: The Marina Bay Sands Singapore
References ^ Israeli architecture with eastern promise
^ Israeli architecture with Eastern promise ^ http:online.wsj.comarticles/SB10001424052748703674704575234153619245116
^ Safdie Rabines Architects ^ Pound, Richard W..
'Fitzhenry and Whiteside Book of Canadian Facts and Dates'.
Fitzhenry and Whiteside.
^ www.robina.com.au ^ Peabody Essex Museum
^ http:www.asian-university.orgplan.htm ^ [1]
^ [2] ^ [3]
^ [4] ^ http:www.amazon.comdpref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398963767&sr=8-1&keywords=reaching+for+the+sky+ORO+editions
External links Moshe Safdie Lecture: In Search of New Typologies
The Safdie Hypermedia Archive-- McGill Univ.
Safdie Architects Historic Places in Canada
CBC Digital archives-- "Moshe Safdie: Hero of Habitat"
Moshe Safdie at the TED, 2002 Fallout Zvi Elhyani, Maayan Magazine, 2005
Power People: Moshe Safdie Zvi Elhyani, Volume, 2005
Salt Lake City Library on ARCHUtah Interview on Charlie Rose August 23, 2011
Kauffmann Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, MO
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