27 Facts About Moshe Safdie

Moshe Safdie is an architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author.

Moshe Safdie is well known for incorporating principles of socially responsible design throughout his six-decade career.

Moshe Safdie's projects include cultural, educational, and civic institutions such as neighborhoods and public parks, housing, mixed-use urban centers, and airports.

Moshe Safdie had master plans for existing communities and entirely new cities in the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia.

Moshe Safdie holds legal citizenship in Israel, Canada, and the United States.

Moshe Safdie was born in the city of Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, to a family of Syrian Jews.

Moshe Safdie's father was from Aleppo, and his mother, whose family had its origins in Aleppo, was from Manchester.

Moshe Safdie was nine years old and living in Haifa when the Israeli Declaration of Independence was issued by David Ben-Gurion.

Consequently, when Moshe Safdie was 15, his family emigrated from Israel to Canada and settled down in the city of Montreal, where he attended Westmount High School.

In September 1955, Moshe Safdie registered for the six-year architectural degree program at the McGill University Faculty of Engineering.

Moshe Safdie traveled across North America to observe housing developments in the continent's major cities.

In 1964, Moshe Safdie established Moshe Safdie Architects in Montreal to undertake work on Habitat 67, an adaptation of his thesis at McGill University.

Moshe 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, Moshe Safdie established a branch office of his practice in Jerusalem.

Moshe Safdie worked on the restoration of the Old City and the construction of Mamilla Mall, linking old and new cities.

Moshe Safdie was consulted on integrated geometry during the development of the Merkava tank by General Israel Tal.

Later, Moshe Safdie received commissions for public buildings in Canada: the National Gallery of Canada, the Quebec Museum of Civilization, and Vancouver Library Square.

Moshe Safdie has worked on projects in emerging markets, and brought projects to completion in shorter periods, at larger scales.

Today, Moshe Safdie Architects is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, near Harvard University, with additional offices in Jerusalem, Toronto, Shanghai, and Singapore.

Moshe Safdie formed a research program within his office to pursue the advanced investigation of design topics.

In December 2023, Moshe Safdie Architects announced it was suspending its involvement in controversial hotel development in Jerusalem's Armenian quarter, citing "controversy surrounding the land lease agreement".

In 1978, after teaching at McGill, Ben Gurion, and Yale universities, Moshe Safdie was appointed Director of the Urban Design Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and moved to Boston, Massachusetts.

Moshe Safdie continues to work closely with the GSD, frequently teaching design studio; Notably, Rethinking the Humanist High-Rise and Rethinking Hudson Yards.

In 1959, Moshe Safdie married Nina Nusynowicz, a Polish-Israeli Holocaust survivor.

Moshe Safdie's daughter Taal is an architect in San Diego, a partner of the firm Safdie Rabines Architects; Moshe Safdie's son Oren is a playwright who has written several plays about architecture.

In 1981, Moshe Safdie married Michal Ronnen, a Jerusalem-born photographer and daughter of artist Vera Ronnen.

The Moshe Safdie Archive, donated to McGill University by the architect in 1990, is one of the most extensive individual collections of architectural documentation in Canada.