Moshe Safdie,
CCThe Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
, FAIA (born July 14, 1938) is an architect, urban designer, educator, theorist, and author. Born in the city of
HaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, then
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
and now
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, he moved with his family to Montreal, Canada, when he was 15 years old.
Career
Safdie graduated from
McGill UniversityMohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
, with a degree in architecture, in 1961. After apprenticing with
Louis KahnLouis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...
in Philadelphia, he 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, starting an involvement with the rebuilding of that city that eventually included the Yitzhak Rabin Center and the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum. 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 Boston and has branches in Toronto, Jerusalem, and Singapore. In that time, 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.
Roll of honour: Punjab Chief Minister honoured Israeli architect Moshe Safdie on 25 th. Nov. 2011 at the ionaugration 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.
Personal life
Safdie married his first wife, Nina Nusynowicz, in 1959. The couple had a daughter, Taal, in 1961, and a son, Oren, in 1965. His son Oren is a playwright, based in California and Canada. His daughter Taal is an architect in San Diego, and partner of the husband-wife firm
Safdie Rabines Architects. 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.
Selected architectural projects
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.
- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville
Bentonville can mean:*Bentonville, Arkansas*Bentonville, Indiana*Battle of Bentonville, American Civil War battle fought in the former town of Bentonville, North Carolina*Bentonville, Texas...
, ArkansasArkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
- United States Institute of Peace
The United States Institute of Peace was created by Congress as a non-partisan, federal institution that works to prevent or end violent conflict around the world...
in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
- Marina Bay Sands, Singapore's second integrated resort and casino
- Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is a newly inaugurated performing arts center in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, USA, at 16th and Broadway near the Power & Light District, the Sprint Center and the Crossroads Arts District. Its construction was a major part of the ongoing redevelopment...
, Kansas CityKansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, MissouriMissouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
- The Exploration Place
Exploration Place is a modern hands-on science museum, located in the Delano Neighborhood and Museums on the River district in Wichita, Kansas, United States.-History:...
Science Museum in WichitaWichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
, KansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
- Asian University for Women
Asian University for Women is an international university in Bangladesh. It is located in Chittagong, port city of Bangladesh.-History:AUW's first academic program, the pre-collegiate , opened in March 2008 with a class of 130 young women from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Pakistan and...
, ChittagongChittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...
, BangladeshBangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
- Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex, Anandpur Sahib
Anandpur Sahib is a city in Rupnagar district in the state of Punjab, India. Known as "the holy City of Bliss," it is a holy city of the Sikhs and is one of their most important sacred places, closely linked with their religious traditions and history...
, PunjabPunjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...
, IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
- Habitat 67 at Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition or Expo 67, as it was commonly known, was the general exhibition, Category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century, with the...
World's FairWorld's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
, Montreal, Quebec
- Skirball Cultural Center
The Skirball Cultural Center is an educational institution in Los Angeles, California devoted to sustaining Jewish heritage and American democratic ideals. Open to the public since 1996, the Skirball Cultural Center is dedicated to exploring the connections between 4,000 years of Jewish heritage...
, Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
- Telfair Museum of Art
The Telfair Museum of Art, located in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, is the South’s first public art museum. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair , a prominent local citizen, the museum opened in 1886 in the Telfair family’s renovated Regency-style mansion, known as the Telfair...
, Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah, GeorgiaSavannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
- The National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
, Ottawa, Ontario
- City plan for Modi'in, Israel
- Former Ottawa City Hall
The John G. Diefenbaker Building is a building in the New Edinburgh neighbourhood of Ottawa, Ontario. The building served as Ottawa's city hall from 1958 to 2000, and is commonly known as Old City Hall...
, Ottawa, Ontario
- Several major buildings, including the new central museum, opened 2005, at Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, Jerusalem, Israel
- Hebrew Union College
The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...
, Jerusalem, IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
- Mamilla
Mamilla was an early neighbourhood constructed outside Jerusalem's Old City west from the Jaffa Gate, and now refers to the $400 million commercial and housing district developed in selected parts of the area....
Centre and David's Village, Jerusalem, IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
- Vancouver Library Square, Vancouver, British Columbia
- The Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts, Vancouver, British Columbia
- Main Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library
The Salt Lake City Public Library system's main branch building is an architecturally unique structure in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is located at 210 East, 400 South, across from the Salt Lake City and County Building and Washington Square.-History:...
, Salt Lake City, UtahSalt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
- Airside building of Terminal 3, Ben Gurion International Airport
Ben Gurion International Airport , also referred to by its Hebrew acronym Natbag , is the largest and busiest international airport in Israel, handling 12,160,339 passengers in 2010...
, Israel
- Terminal 1, Toronto Pearson International Airport
Toronto Pearson International Airport is an international airport serving Toronto, Ontario, Canada; its metropolitan area; and the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration that is home to 8.1 million people – approximately 25% of Canada's population...
, with Skidmore Owings Merrill
- The Class of 1959 Chapel
The Class of 1959 Chapel was built in 1992 as a non-denominational chapel located on the campus of Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. It was designed by Moshe Safdie in 1992, as part of a master plan to complement the existing 1927 campus architecture by McKim, Mead and White that...
, Harvard Business SchoolHarvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
, Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
- Yitzhak Rabin Center, Tel Aviv, Israel
- The campus of Hebrew College
Hebrew College is an accredited college of Jewish studies in Newton Centre, near Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1921, Hebrew College is committed to Jewish scholarship in a transdenominational academic environment. The president of the college is Rabbi Daniel Lehmann...
in Newton, Massachusetts
- The Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a major museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1860, making it Canada's oldest art institution, it moved to its current location in 1912 thanks to a large donation from businessman James Ross....
- Peabody Essex Museum
The Peabody Essex Museum , originally the Peabody Museum of Salem and the Essex Institute, in Salem, Massachusetts is the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States, and holds one of the major collections of Asian art in the US; its total holdings include about 1.3 million pieces, as...
in Salem, MassachusettsSalem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
- Eleanor Roosevelt College
Eleanor Roosevelt College is one of the six colleges located on the campus at the University of California, San Diego...
campus, UC San Diego
- Coldspring New Town, Baltimore, Maryland
- Headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF)
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a federal law enforcement organization within the United States Department of Justice...
, Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
- United States Federal Courthouse, District of Massachusetts, Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
- The Esplanade condominium complex in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
- Pantages Tower
Pantages Tower is a condominium and boutique hotel built near the Canon Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.At 139.6 metres and 45 floors, the glass tower was completed in 2003....
, Toronto, Ontario
- Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is a newly inaugurated performing arts center in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, USA, at 16th and Broadway near the Power & Light District, the Sprint Center and the Crossroads Arts District. Its construction was a major part of the ongoing redevelopment...
, Kansas City, MO. September 2011
Safdie
Others
Selected awards
- 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
External links