Moshe Safdie (; born July 14, 1938) is an architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author, with American, Canadian, and Israeli citizenship. He is known for incorporating principles of socially responsible design in his 50-year career. His projects include cultural, educational, and civic institutions; neighborhoods and public parks; housing; mixed-use urban centers; airports; and master plans for existing communities and entirely new cities in North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia. He is most identified with designing Marina Bay Sands and Jewel Changi Airport, as well as his debut project, Habitat 67, originally conceived as his thesis at McGill University.
Early life and education
Moshe Safdie was born in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine, in 1938, to a family of Syrian-Jewish and Lebanese-Jewish descent. He was nine years old and still living in Haifa when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. Safdie attended Reali High School. He lived on a kibbutz, working in the countryside. He tended goats and kept bees. In 1953, the Israeli government restricted imports in response to an economic and currency crisis, which severely affected Safdie's father's textile business. Consequently, when Safdie was 15, his family emigrated to Montreal. There, he attended Westmount High School.
In September 1955, he registered for the six-year architectural degree program at the McGill University Faculty of Engineering. In his fifth year, Safdie was named University Scholar. The following summer, he was awarded the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) Scholarship. He traveled across North America to observe housing developments in major cities. In his final year, Safdie developed his thesis, entitled "A Case for City Living," and described as "A Three-Dimensional Modular Building System." He received his degree in 1961 at the age of 21. Two years later, while apprenticing with Louis Kahn, Safdie was invited by his thesis advisor, Sandy van Ginkel, to submit his modular project for the World Exposition of 1967, to be held in Montreal. Constructed permanently there, it became known as Habitat 67.
Career
In 1964, Safdie established Safdie Architects in Montreal to undertake work on Habitat 67, an adaptation of his thesis at McGill University. Habitat 67 was selected by Canada as a central feature of Expo 67. The project pioneered the design and implementation of three-dimensional, prefabricated units for living. Safdie designed the complex as a neighborhood with open spaces, garden terraces, and many other amenities typically reserved for the single-family home and adapted to a high-density urban environment.
In 1970, Safdie established a branch office of his practice in Jerusalem. During this period, Safdie combined his interests in social activism and advanced technologies with respect for historical and regional context. He worked on the restoration of the Old City and the construction of Mamilla Mall, linking old and new cities. Other significant works in Israel include the New City of Modi’in, the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum, Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, Ben Gurion International Airport, National Campus for the Archeology of Israel, multiple projects for Hebrew Union College, and others. During this period, Safdie also worked with leaders in Senegal and Iran.
Later, Safdie received commissions for public buildings in Canada: the National Gallery of Canada, the Quebec Museum of Civilization, and Vancouver Library Square. Other notable cultural works include the Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex, the national museum of the Sikh people in Punjab, India; the United States Institute of Peace Headquarters on the Mall in Washington, DC; the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Safdie has worked on projects in emerging markets, and brought projects to completion in shorter periods, at larger scales. including: Marina Bay Sands, a mixed-use resort integrated with Singapore's iconic Skypark; Jewel Changi Airport, a new community-centric airport typology combining marketplace and garden; and Raffles City Chongqing, a mixed-use development featuring over one million square meters of housing, office, retail, transportation, and hotel programs. To connect four towers in Chongqing, China, he designed a sky bridge that has been referred to as the world's longest "Horizontal Skyscraper." Safdie and his team have used sky bridges and multi-level connectivity in other projects to make skyscrapers more accessible.