Biography

Moshe Safdie was born on July 14, 1938 in Haifa, Palestine [now Israel].

He was awarded the O.C. (Officer of the Order of Canada) on June 23, 1986 and the C.C. (Companion of the Order of Canda) on October 29, 2004 for his services to architecture.

Somerville, Massachusetts

I try firstly to make buildings humane. Countries and places have a history, a story, and a culture. I want my buildings to take root and look as if they've always been there. It isn't about about pastiche or adapting what's already there. It's about trying to blend the future and the past.

In China today, there's the ambition and desire and the financial capability to experiment, even though its landscape is as depressing as hell. Our landscape is low-density blight and they specialize in high-density blight. But there's a great opportunity to create an oasis.

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.

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 as the servant of his fellow being / Shall find the joy of Self-Expression. / He who seeks Self-Expression / Shall fall into the pit of Arrogance. / Arrogance is incompatible with nature. / Thru the nature of the universe / and the nature of man / we shall seek Truth. / If we seek truth we shall find Beauty.