Moshe Safdie Quotations

Architecture should be rooted in the past, and yet be part of our own time and forward looking.

Architecture has joined the world of fashion, but fashion is passing and architecture is timeless.

Beauty connotes humanity. We call a natural object beautiful because we see that its form expresses fitness, the perfect fulfillment of function.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Countries and places have a history, a story, and a culture.

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.

A house is not a machine! It's something else for living - but not a machine.

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.

Architecture is changing faster than some other professions.

I grew up in a country where the environment was very social justice-oriented.

There is a profound ethic to architecture which is different from the other arts.

Who knows, maybe I am simply a talented architect?

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.

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.

Urban design as a discipline barely exists in most American and Canadian cities. In Singapore, there are innovative transportation strategies at work.

I have a passion for libraries. They are potentially real community centers.

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.

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.

We inherited a site with a large, bunker-like structure and made every attempt to weave it into the narrative of the project. The lower portion of the building, with its militaristic past, represents the first portion of Rabin's life as a warrior. The upper portion of the building, with its mission of education, its expansive views, and symbolic dove's wings, represents the diplomat and mediator that he became.

Bringing it to street level, combining it with a park, you bring daylight into it. It's airy. So we save tens of millions of dollars and greatly improve the project experience.

This is going to make the whole area airy, exciting, green, a place they want to be in.

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.

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.

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.

We are producing urban places which are disjointed and disconnected and not worthy of our civilisation

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.

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.

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.