Moshe Safdie
Architecture is changing faster than some other professions.Collection: Architecture
Architecture should be rooted in the past, and yet be part of our own time and forward looking.Collection: Architecture
Urban design as a discipline barely exists in most American and Canadian cities. In Singapore, there are innovative transportation strategies at work.Collection: Design
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 be disappointed. He who considers himself the servant of his fellow beings shall find the joy of self-expression. He who seeks self-expression shall fall into the pit of arrogance.Collection: Beauty
Beauty connotes humanity. We call a natural object beautiful because we see that its form expresses fitness, the perfect fulfillment of function.Collection: Beauty
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.Collection: Design
Architecture has joined the world of fashion, but fashion is passing and architecture is timeless.Collection: Architecture
There is a profound ethic to architecture which is different from the other arts.Collection: Architecture
A house is not a machine! It's something else for living - but not a machine.
I want my buildings to take root and look as if they've always been there. It isn't about pastiche or adapting what's already there. It's about trying to blend the future and the past.
I try firstly to make buildings humane.
Countries and places have a history, a story, and a culture.
I don't think I have a signature style that announces, 'This is a Safdie.' But I think star architects have seized an opportunity to go anywhere in the world to produce meaningless buildings.
I have a passion for libraries. They are potentially real community centers.
We live in a complicated, oppressive world with enormous cities and vast populations, and I try to contribute by making it more light and open and calm.
Except for the projects in Israel, my being Israeli has contributed negatively to my global activity. It is hard for me, for example, to get projects in the Persian Gulf emirates.
I grew up in a country where the environment was very social justice-oriented.
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.
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.
A painter, a sculptor, a writer, they can express freely. They don't affect society as a whole. We build buildings that have a purpose, that stay there for hundreds of years or decades.
Who knows, maybe I am simply a talented architect?
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.
My identity is always at the forefront, and I also think that every article that is written about me refers to me as an Israeli architect.
Architecture is not about building the impossible, which we can do if we have enough money and enough tools and enough computers. It is about building what is appropriate and about attaining beauty through such an approach. I describe this premise as 'inherent buildability', and I believe it is central to what I do.Collection: Beauty
The greatest satisfaction, I think, is when a building opens and the public possesses it and you cut the umbilical cord and you see it taking on its own life. There’s no greater satisfaction.Collection: Cutting
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.Collection: Cities
We are producing urban places which are disjointed and disconnected and not worthy of our civilisationCollection: Urban
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.Collection: Children