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Moshe Safdie was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1938. He later moved to Canada with his family, graduating from McGill University in 1961 with a degree in architecture. After apprenticing with Louis I. Kahn in Philadelphia, he returned to Montreal, taking charge of the master plan for the 1967 World Exhibition, where he also realized an adaptation of his theses as Habitat ’67, the central feature of the World’s Fair.
In 1970, Mr. Safdie established a Jerusalem branch office, commencing an intense involvement with the rebuilding of the ancient city. He was responsible for major segments of the restoration of the Old City and the reconstruction of the new center, linking the Old and New Cities. Over the years, his involvement expanded and included the new city of Modi’in, the new Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, and the Rabin Memorial Center. During this period, Safdie also became involved in the developing world, working in Senegal, Iran, Singapore, and in the northern Canadian arctic.
In 1978, after teaching at Yale, McGill, and the Ben Gurion Universities, Safdie relocated his residence and principal office to Boston and became Director of the Urban Design Program and the Ian Woodner Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In the 1980s, he was responsible for the design of six of Canada’s principal public institutions, including the Quebec Museum of Civilization, the National Gallery of Canada, and Vancouver Library Square.
In the past decade, Safdie’s major cultural and educational commissions in the United States have included: the United States Institute of Peace Headquarters on the Mall in Washington, D.C.; the Skirball Museum and Cultural center in Los Angeles; Exploration Place in Wichita, Kansas; educational facilities such as Eleanor Roosevelt College at the University of California in San Diego; civic buildings, such as the Springfield, Massachusetts and Mobile, Alabama, Federal Courthouses; and performing arts centers such as the Kansas City Performing Arts Center.
Major complexes currently under construction include the Khalso Heritage Memorial Complex, the national museum of the Sikh people in the Punjab, India; the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia; and the Federal Building in Washington, D.C.
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