Moshe Safdie
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Moshe Safdie, CC, B.Arch, LL.D. , F.R.A.I.C., FAIA (born July 14, 1938) is an architect and urban designer. He was born in the town of Haifa in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel. He moved with his family to Montreal, Canada when he was a teenager, a move he disliked as a dedicated Zionist and socialist.
An excellent student, he studied architectural engineering at McGill University and apprenticed under Louis Kahn in Philadelphia. At age twenty-four his master's thesis was selected to be constructed as part of the Expo '67 celebration. The Habitat 67 project, a complex of cellular residences that could be lifted into place like LEGO blocks, made him known around the world. In 1967, he returned to Israel, where he was part of the team that refurnished Old Jerusalem. He lives in a renovated home in the old city and has dual Israeli-Canadian citizenship.
In 1976, he became a professor at Harvard University and set up his firm's head office in nearby Somerville, Massachusetts, where it remains today. In 1986, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 2005. His nephew is Dov Charney, the founder of the clothing company American Apparel.
His company, Moshe Safdie & Associates, is based out of Boston with branch offices in Toronto and Jerusalem.
[edit] Important works
Moshe Safdie's works are known for their dramatic curves, arrays of simple geometric patterns, and usage of windows and open spaces.
- Habitat '67 at Expo 67 World's Fair, Montreal, Quebec
- Coldspring New Town, Baltimore, Maryland
- The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
- City plan for the city of Modi'in, Israel
- Former Ottawa City Hall, Ottawa, Ontario
- Several major buildings, including the new central museum, opened 2005, at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel
- Hebrew Union College, first phase and Merkaz Shimshon expansion, Jerusalem, Israel
- Mamilla Centre and David's Village, Jerusalem, Israel
- Vancouver Library Square, Vancouver, British Columbia
- Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Vancouver, British Columbia
- Main Branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library, Salt Lake City, Utah
- Airside building of Terminal 3, Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel
- The Marina Bay Sands, Singapore's first integrated resort and casino
- Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, Missouri.
- The Class of 1959 Chapel, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[edit] Publications include
- Beyond Habitat (1970)
- Beyond Habitat by 20 Years (1987)
- The City After the Automobile: An Architect's Vision (1998)
[edit] External links
- The Safdie Hypermedia Archive at McGill University.
- Moshe Safdie and Associates
- CBC Digital Archives - Moshe Safdie: Hero of Habitat
