Interior of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Jerusalem.
Photo Credit : Ideasgn
Marina Bay Sands Resort, Singapore.
Photo Credit : Pegeot
Kauffman Center for Performing Arts.
Photo Credit : Kevin Burdette
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Photo Credit : John Talbot
Moshe Safdie working on a model of Habitat 67 which was adapted from his final thesis while studying at McGill University.
Photo Credit : Safdie Architects
1938 -
Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie is an Israeli-Canadian architect who designed Habitat 67: A Lego-like cluster of blocks built as part of Expo 67, that has since become a landmark of architectural modernity.
Born in Haifa, Israel, Safdie moved to Canada with his family as a young man. He studied architecture at McGill University and launched his career in Montreal, developing the Habitat 67 concept as part of his Master’s thesis. After completing the project, he returned to Israel, where he worked on the restoration of Old Jerusalem and the design of the new town of Modi’in.
Today, the architecture firm Safdie Architects has several branch offices in locations including Somerville (Massachusetts), Toronto and Jerusalem. Safdie is the creator of numerous iconic architectural projects around the globe including the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion of Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts, the new Yad Vashem buildings (Jerusalem Holocaust History Museum) in Israel, the ArtScience Museum in Singapore, and the Salt Lake City Public Library in the United States.
Safdie has taught at McGill, Yale and Ben Gurion University. He has also served as Director of the Urban Design Program and as the Ian Woodner Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He has written several books about his vision for architecture and his projects, including Beyond Habitat (1970), Jerusalem: The Future of the Past (1989) and The City After the Automobile (1997). In 2004, Montreal filmmaker Donald Winkler made a documentary about Moshe Safdie, The Power of Architecture, with the architect’s participation.
In 2009 the Minister of Culture and Communications Christine St. Pierre announced that Habitat 67 would be designated as a historic monument by the Quebec government – the first modern building to receive this distinction.
Over the years, Safdie has been the recipient of many awards and honours, including the Order of Canada and the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. This Israeli-Canadian, who studied in Montreal and launched his career in the city, is today one of the world’s most respected architects.
