Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie
Moshe Safdie, CC, FAIAis an Israeli/Canadian/American architect, urban designer, educator, theorist, and author. He is most identified with Habitat 67, which paved the way for his international career...
NationalityIsraeli
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth14 July 1938
CountryIsrael
architecture arrogance considers fall fellow himself joy nature pit seeks servant shall truth universe
He who seeks truth, shall find beauty. He who seeks beauty, shall find vanity. He who seeks order, shall find gratification.He who seeks gratification, shall find disappointment. He who considers himself a servant of his fellow beings,shall find joy of self expression. He who seeks self expression, shall fall to the pit of arrogance. Arrogance is incompatible with nature. Through nature, the nature of the universe and the nature of man,we shall seek truth. If we seek truth we shall find beauty.
achieved certain concentration creates francisco los openness possible prefer san society york
I prefer San Francisco to Los Angeles. I prefer New York to Philadelphia. Why? The kind of concentration that is achieved in them creates certain choices, an openness of society that is not possible in the lower-density environments.
children growing-up sleep
I want my children to be able to meet and play and communicate with many other children on their own, not only when they are driven somewhere. I want them to grow up in an environment that is not just a place where people sleep but where people work.. and where people enjoy themselves.
cities discipline design
Urban design as a discipline barely exists in most American and Canadian cities. In Singapore, there are innovative transportation strategies at work.
strong thinking hands
I think the general public's response to my projects is very strong. You can be an intellectual and say that popularity detracts from architectural quality. On the other hand, you can see in the public's identification something very positive.
architecture faster profession
Architecture is changing faster than some other professions.
fashion world architecture
Architecture has joined the world of fashion, but fashion is passing and architecture is timeless.
art sight perfect
Performing arts buildings are complex. The acoustics, the sight lines and all that have to just be perfect. So you begin with just making these things sublime as musical instruments. And if you fail there, you have failed it all.
beautiful perfect humanity
Beauty connotes humanity. We call a natural object beautiful because we see that its form expresses fitness, the perfect fulfillment of function.
architecture urban worthy
We are producing urban places which are disjointed and disconnected and not worthy of our civilisation
cities space people
This is the contradictory desire in our utopia. We want to live in a small community with which we can identify and yet we want all the facilities of the city of millions of people. We want to have very intense urban experiences and yet we want the open space right next to us.
art profound different
There is a profound ethic to architecture which is different from the other arts.
taken cutting agency
I'm completely taken and impressed by the planning authority of Singapore and its Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). It's the most cutting-edge agency in the world. They have very effective guidelines for development, and they review design as it evolves.
thinking essence cities
I think you need to, as an architect, understand the essence of a place and create a building that feels like it resonates with the culture of a place. So my buildings in India or in Kansas City or in Arkansas or in Singapore, they come out different because the places are so different.