TED2002
Moshe Safdie: Building uniqueness
Filmed:
Readability: 3.9
615,508 views
Looking back over his long career, architect Moshe Safdie delves into four of his design projects and explains how he labored to make each one truly unique for its site and its users.
Moshe Safdie - Architect
Moshe Safdie's buildings -- from grand libraries to intimate apartment complexes -- explore the qualities of light and the nature of private and public space. Full bio
Moshe Safdie's buildings -- from grand libraries to intimate apartment complexes -- explore the qualities of light and the nature of private and public space. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:13
So, what I'd like to talk about is something
0
1000
4000
00:17
that was very dear to Kahn's heart, which is:
1
5000
2000
00:19
how do we discover what is really particular about a project?
2
7000
3000
00:22
How do you discover the uniqueness of a project as unique as a person?
3
10000
6000
00:28
Because it seems to me that finding this uniqueness
4
16000
3000
00:31
has to do with dealing with the whole force of globalization;
5
19000
10000
00:41
that the particular is central to finding the uniqueness of place
6
29000
6000
00:47
and the uniqueness of a program in a building.
7
35000
3000
00:50
And so I'll take you to Wichita, Kansas,
8
38000
4000
00:54
where I was asked some years ago to do a science museum
9
42000
3000
00:57
on a site, right downtown by the river.
10
45000
5000
01:02
And I thought the secret of the site was to make the building of the river, part of the river.
11
50000
6000
01:08
Unfortunately, though, the site was separated from the river by McLean Boulevard
12
56000
5000
01:13
so I suggested, "Let's reroute McLean,"
13
61000
3000
01:16
and that gave birth instantly to Friends of McLean Boulevard.
14
64000
4000
01:20
(Laughter)
15
68000
5000
01:25
And it took six months to reroute it.
16
73000
3000
01:28
The first image I showed the building committee was
17
76000
6000
01:34
this astronomic observatory of Jantar Mantar in Jaipur
18
82000
5000
01:39
because I talked about what makes a building a building of science.
19
87000
6000
01:45
And it seemed to me that this structure -- complex, rich and yet
20
93000
6000
01:51
totally rational: it's an instrument -- had something to do with science,
21
99000
3000
01:54
and somehow a building for science should be different and unique and speak of that.
22
102000
5000
01:59
And so my first sketch after I left was to say,
23
107000
2000
02:01
"Let's cut the channel and make an island and make an island building."
24
109000
6000
02:07
And I got all excited and came back, and
25
115000
3000
02:10
they sort of looked at me in dismay and said, "An island?
26
118000
3000
02:13
This used to be an island -- Ackerman Island --
27
121000
2000
02:15
and we filled in the channel during the Depression to create jobs."
28
123000
3000
02:18
(Laughter)
29
126000
3000
02:21
And so the process began and they said,
30
129000
3000
02:24
"You can't put it all on an island;
31
132000
2000
02:26
some of it has to be on the mainland because
32
134000
2000
02:28
we don't want to turn our back to the community."
33
136000
3000
02:31
And there emerged a design: the galleries sort of forming an island
34
139000
4000
02:35
and you could walk through them or on the roof.
35
143000
3000
02:38
And there were all kinds of exciting features:
36
146000
3000
02:41
you could come in through the landside buildings,
37
149000
3000
02:44
walk through the galleries into playgrounds in the landscape.
38
152000
3000
02:47
If you were cheap you could walk on top of a bridge to the roof,
39
155000
3000
02:50
peek in the exhibits and then get totally seduced,
40
158000
4000
02:54
come back and pay the five dollars admission.
41
162000
2000
02:56
(Laughter)
42
164000
2000
02:58
And the client was happy -- well, sort of happy
43
166000
2000
03:00
because we were four million dollars over the budget, but essentially happy.
44
168000
4000
03:04
But I was still troubled, and I was troubled because I felt this was capricious.
45
172000
6000
03:10
It was complex, but there was something capricious about its complexity.
46
178000
5000
03:15
It was, what I would say, compositional complexity,
47
183000
3000
03:18
and I felt that if I had to fulfill what I talked about --
48
186000
5000
03:23
a building for science -- there had to be some kind of a generating idea,
49
191000
3000
03:26
some kind of a generating geometry.
50
194000
3000
03:29
And this gave birth to the idea of having toroidal generating geometry,
51
197000
5000
03:34
one with its center deep in the earth for the landside building
52
202000
4000
03:38
and a toroid with its center in the sky for the island building.
53
206000
6000
03:44
A toroid, for those who don't know,
54
212000
2000
03:46
is the surface of a doughnut or, for some of us, a bagel.
55
214000
4000
03:50
And out of this idea started spinning off many,
56
218000
4000
03:54
many kinds of variations of different plans and possibilities,
57
222000
5000
03:59
and then the plan itself evolved in relationship to the exhibits,
58
227000
4000
04:03
and you see the intersection of the plan with the toroidal geometry.
59
231000
6000
04:09
And finally the building -- this is the model.
60
237000
3000
04:12
And when there were complaints about budget, I said,
61
240000
2000
04:14
"Well, it's worth doing the island because you get twice for your money: reflections."
62
242000
5000
04:20
And here's the building as it opened,
63
248000
3000
04:23
with a channel overlooking downtown, and as seen from downtown.
64
251000
5000
04:28
And the bike route's going right through the building,
65
256000
3000
04:31
so those traveling the river would see the exhibits and be drawn to the building.
66
259000
6000
04:40
The toroidal geometry made for a very efficient building:
67
268000
3000
04:43
every beam in this building is the same radius, all laminated wood.
68
271000
5000
04:48
Every wall, every concrete wall is resisting the stresses and supporting the building.
69
276000
6000
04:54
Every piece of the building works.
70
282000
3000
04:57
These are the galleries with the light coming in through the skylights,
71
285000
4000
05:02
and at night, and on opening day.
72
290000
4000
05:08
Going back to 1976.
73
296000
3000
05:11
(Applause)
74
299000
5000
05:16
In 1976, I was asked to design a children's memorial museum
75
304000
5000
05:21
in a Holocaust museum in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem,
76
309000
4000
05:25
which you see here the campus.
77
313000
3000
05:28
I was asked to do a building,
78
316000
2000
05:30
and I was given all the artifacts of clothing and drawings.
79
318000
6000
05:36
And I felt very troubled.
80
324000
2000
05:38
I worked on it for months and I couldn't deal with it
81
326000
2000
05:40
because I felt people were coming out of the historic museum,
82
328000
3000
05:43
they are totally saturated with information
83
331000
3000
05:46
and to see yet another museum with information,
84
334000
3000
05:49
it would make them just unable to digest.
85
337000
4000
05:53
And so I made a counter-proposal:
86
341000
2000
05:55
I said, "No building." There was a cave on the site; we tunnel into the hill,
87
343000
7000
06:02
descend through the rock into an underground chamber.
88
350000
6000
06:08
There's an anteroom with photographs of children who perished
89
356000
4000
06:12
and then you come into a large space.
90
360000
3000
06:16
There is a single candle flickering in the center;
91
364000
4000
06:20
by an arrangement of reflective glasses, it reflects into infinity in all directions.
92
368000
7000
06:27
You walk through the space, a voice reads the names,
93
375000
5000
06:32
ages and place of birth of the children.
94
380000
2000
06:34
This voice does not repeat for six months.
95
382000
3000
06:37
And then you descend to light and to the north and to life.
96
385000
5000
06:42
Well, they said, "People won't understand,
97
390000
2000
06:44
they'll think it's a discotheque. You can't do that."
98
392000
2000
06:46
And they shelved the project. And it sat there for 10 years,
99
394000
4000
06:50
and then one day Abe Spiegel from Los Angeles,
100
398000
4000
06:54
who had lost his three-year-old son at Auschwitz,
101
402000
3000
06:57
came, saw the model, wrote the check and it got built 10 years later.
102
405000
4000
07:03
So, many years after that in 1998,
103
411000
4000
07:07
I was on one of my monthly trips to Jerusalem
104
415000
4000
07:11
and I got a call from the foreign ministry saying,
105
419000
3000
07:14
"We've got the Chief Minister of the Punjab here.
106
422000
6000
07:20
He is on a state visit. We took him on a visit to Yad Vashem,
107
428000
6000
07:26
we took him to the children's memorial; he was extremely moved.
108
434000
3000
07:29
He's demanding to meet the architect. Could you come down and meet him in Tel Aviv?"
109
437000
3000
07:32
And I went down and Chief Minister Badal said to me,
110
440000
5000
07:37
"We Sikhs have suffered a great deal, as you have Jews.
111
445000
5000
07:42
I was very moved by what I saw today.
112
450000
3000
07:45
We are going to build our national museum to tell the story of our people;
113
453000
4000
07:49
we're about to embark on that.
114
457000
2000
07:51
I'd like you to come and design it."
115
459000
2000
07:53
And so, you know, it's one of those things that you don't take too seriously.
116
461000
6000
07:59
But two weeks later, I was in this little town, Anandpur Sahib,
117
467000
5000
08:04
outside Chandigarh, the capital of the Punjab,
118
472000
4000
08:08
and the temple and also next to it the fortress
119
476000
5000
08:13
that the last guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind, died in
120
481000
5000
08:18
as he wrote the Khalsa, which is their holy scripture.
121
486000
5000
08:23
And I got to work and they took me somewhere down there,
122
491000
5000
08:28
nine kilometers away from the town and the temple,
123
496000
2000
08:30
and said, "That's where we have chosen the location."
124
498000
3000
08:33
And I said, "This just doesn't make any sense.
125
501000
4000
08:37
The pilgrims come here by the hundreds of thousands --
126
505000
3000
08:40
they're not going to get in trucks and buses and go down there.
127
508000
3000
08:43
Let's get back to the town and walk to the site."
128
511000
3000
08:46
And I recommended they do it right there, on that hill
129
514000
3000
08:49
and this hill, and bridge all the way into the town.
130
517000
4000
08:53
And, as things are a little easier in India, the site was purchased within a week
131
521000
6000
08:59
and we were working.
132
527000
2000
09:01
(Laughter)
133
529000
1000
09:02
And my proposal was to split the museum into two --
134
530000
4000
09:06
the permanent exhibits at one end, the auditorium, library,
135
534000
5000
09:11
and changing exhibitions on the other --
136
539000
2000
09:13
to flood the valley into a series of water gardens
137
541000
4000
09:17
and to link it all to the fort and to the downtown.
138
545000
4000
09:21
And the structures rise from the sand cliffs --
139
549000
4000
09:25
they're built in concrete and sandstones; the roofs are stainless steel --
140
553000
5000
09:30
they are facing south and reflecting light towards the temple itself,
141
558000
5000
09:35
pedestrians crisscross from one side to the other.
142
563000
3000
09:38
And as you come from the north, it is all masonry growing out of the sand cliffs
143
566000
6000
09:44
as you come from the Himalayas and evoking the tradition of the fortress.
144
572000
6000
09:50
And then I went away for four months
145
578000
2000
09:52
and there was going to be groundbreaking.
146
580000
2000
09:54
And I came back and, lo and behold, the little model I'd left behind
147
582000
3000
09:57
had been built ten times bigger for public display on site
148
585000
4000
10:01
and ... the bridge was built!
149
589000
3000
10:04
(Laughter)
150
592000
7000
10:11
Within the working drawings!
151
599000
2000
10:14
And half a million people gathered for the celebrations;
152
602000
4000
10:20
you can see them on the site itself as the foundations are beginning.
153
608000
4000
10:24
I was renamed Safdie Singh. And there it is under construction;
154
612000
5000
10:29
there are 1,800 workers at work and it will be finished in two years.
155
617000
5000
10:34
Back to Yad Vashem three years ago. After all this episode began,
156
622000
5000
10:39
Yad Vashem decided to rebuild completely the historic museum
157
627000
4000
10:43
because now Washington was built -- the Holocaust Museum in Washington --
158
631000
3000
10:46
and that museum is so much more comprehensive in terms of information.
159
634000
5000
10:51
And Yad Vashem needs to deal with three million visitors a year at this point.
160
639000
4000
10:55
They said, "Let's rebuild the museum."
161
643000
2000
10:57
But of course, the Sikhs might give you a job on a platter -- the Jews make it hard:
162
645000
4000
11:01
international competition, phase one, phase two, phase three.
163
649000
5000
11:06
(Laughter)
164
654000
2000
11:08
And again, I felt kind of uncomfortable with the notion
165
656000
4000
11:12
that a building the size of the Washington building --
166
660000
5000
11:17
50,000 square feet -- will sit on that fragile hill
167
665000
4000
11:21
and that we will go into galleries -- rooms with doors
168
669000
4000
11:25
and sort of familiar rooms -- to tell the story of the Holocaust.
169
673000
4000
11:29
And I proposed that we cut through the mountain. That was my first sketch.
170
677000
5000
11:34
Just cut the whole museum through the mountain --
171
682000
2000
11:36
enter from one side of the mountain,
172
684000
2000
11:38
come out on the other side of the mountain --
173
686000
2000
11:40
and then bring light through the mountain into the chambers.
174
688000
4000
11:44
And here you see the model:
175
692000
3000
11:47
a reception building and some underground parking.
176
695000
3000
11:50
You cross a bridge, you enter this triangular room, 60 feet high,
177
698000
6000
11:56
which cuts right into the hill
178
704000
2000
11:58
and extends right through as you go towards the north.
179
706000
5000
12:03
And all of it, then, all the galleries are underground,
180
711000
3000
12:06
and you see the openings for the light.
181
714000
3000
12:09
And at night, just one line of light cuts through the mountain,
182
717000
3000
12:12
which is a skylight on top of that triangle.
183
720000
4000
12:16
And all the galleries,
184
724000
4000
12:20
as you move through them and so on, are below grade.
185
728000
3000
12:23
And there are chambers carved in the rock --
186
731000
5000
12:28
concrete walls, stone, the natural rock when possible -- with the light shafts.
187
736000
4000
12:32
This is actually a Spanish quarry, which sort of inspired
188
740000
6000
12:38
the kind of spaces that these galleries could be.
189
746000
3000
12:41
And then, coming towards the north, it opens up:
190
749000
3000
12:44
it bursts out of the mountain into, again, a view of light and of the city
191
752000
6000
12:50
and of the Jerusalem hills.
192
758000
3000
12:55
I'd like to conclude with a project I've been working on for two months.
193
763000
5000
13:00
It's the headquarters for the Institute of Peace in Washington,
194
768000
6000
13:06
the U.S. Institute of Peace.
195
774000
2000
13:08
The site chosen is across from the Lincoln Memorial;
196
776000
5000
13:13
you see it there directly on the Mall. It's the last building on the Mall,
197
781000
4000
13:17
on access of the Roosevelt Bridge that comes in from Virginia.
198
785000
4000
13:22
That too was a competition, and it is something I'm just beginning to work on.
199
790000
6000
13:30
But one recognized the kind of uniqueness of the site.
200
798000
4000
13:34
If it were to be anywhere in Washington,
201
802000
2000
13:36
it would be an office building, a conference center,
202
804000
3000
13:39
a place for negotiating peace and so on -- all of which the building is --
203
807000
4000
13:43
but by virtue of the choice of putting it on the Mall and by the Lincoln Memorial,
204
811000
4000
13:47
this becomes the structure that is the symbol of peace on the Mall.
205
815000
5000
13:52
And that was a lot of heat to deal with.
206
820000
5000
13:57
The first sketch recognizes that the building is many spaces --
207
825000
4000
14:01
spaces where research goes on, conference centers,
208
829000
5000
14:06
a public building because it will be a museum devoted to peacemaking --
209
834000
4000
14:10
and these are the drawings that we submitted for the competition,
210
838000
4000
14:14
the plans showing the spaces which radiate outwards from the entry.
211
842000
5000
14:19
You see the structure as, in the sequence of structures on the Mall,
212
847000
4000
14:23
very transparent and inviting and looking in.
213
851000
4000
14:27
And then as you enter it again, looking in all directions towards the city.
214
855000
5000
14:32
And what I felt about that building is that it really was a building
215
860000
4000
14:36
that had to do with a lightness of being -- to quote Kundera --
216
864000
7000
14:43
that it had to do with whiteness,
217
871000
2000
14:45
it had to do with a certain dynamic quality and it had to do with optimism.
218
873000
6000
14:51
And this is where it is; it's sort of evolving.
219
879000
5000
14:56
Studies for the structure of the roof,
220
884000
3000
14:59
which demands maybe new materials:
221
887000
4000
15:03
how to make it white, how to make it translucent, how to make it glowing,
222
891000
4000
15:07
how to make it not capricious.
223
895000
3000
15:12
And here studying, in three dimensions,
224
900000
3000
15:15
how to give some kind, again, of order, a structure;
225
903000
6000
15:21
not something you feel you could just change
226
909000
2000
15:23
because you stop the design of that particular process.
227
911000
3000
15:31
And so it goes.
228
919000
2000
15:37
I'd like to conclude by saying something ...
229
925000
2000
15:39
(Applause)
230
927000
8000
15:47
I'd like to conclude by relating all of what I've said to the term "beauty."
231
935000
6000
15:53
And I know it is not a fashionable term these days,
232
941000
3000
15:56
and certainly not fashionable in the discourse of architectural schools,
233
944000
4000
16:00
but it seems to me that all this, in one way or the other, is a search for beauty.
234
948000
6000
16:06
Beauty in the most profound sense of fit.
235
954000
3000
16:09
I have a quote that I like by a morphologist, 1917,
236
957000
9000
16:18
Theodore Cook, who said, "Beauty connotes humanity.
237
966000
4000
16:22
We call a natural object beautiful because we see
238
970000
4000
16:26
that its form expresses fitness, the perfect fulfillment of function."
239
974000
5000
16:31
Well, I would have said the perfect fulfillment of purpose.
240
979000
4000
16:35
Nevertheless, beauty as the kind of fit; something that tells us
241
983000
5000
16:40
that all the forces that have to do with our natural environment
242
988000
4000
16:44
have been fulfilled -- and our human environment -- for that.
243
992000
4000
16:48
Twenty years ago, in a conference Richard and I were at together,
244
996000
5000
16:53
I wrote a poem, which seems to me to still hold for me today.
245
1001000
5000
16:58
"He who seeks truth shall find beauty. He who seeks beauty shall find vanity.
246
1006000
7000
17:05
He who seeks order shall find gratification.
247
1013000
4000
17:09
He who seeks gratification shall be disappointed.
248
1017000
4000
17:13
He who considers himself the servant of his fellow beings
249
1021000
3000
17:16
shall find the joy of self-expression. He who seeks self-expression
250
1024000
6000
17:22
shall fall into the pit of arrogance.
251
1030000
2000
17:24
Arrogance is incompatible with nature.
252
1032000
3000
17:27
Through nature, the nature of the universe and the nature of man,
253
1035000
3000
17:30
we shall seek truth. If we seek truth, we shall find beauty."
254
1038000
4000
17:34
Thank you very much. (Applause)
255
1042000
1000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Moshe Safdie - ArchitectMoshe Safdie's buildings -- from grand libraries to intimate apartment complexes -- explore the qualities of light and the nature of private and public space.
Why you should listen
Moshe Safdie's master's thesis quickly became a cult building: his modular "Habitat '67" apartments for Montreal Expo '67. Within a dizzying pile of concrete, each apartment was carefully sited to have natural light and a tiny, private outdoor space for gardening. These themes have carried forward throughout Safdie's career -- his buildings tend to soak in the light, and to hold cozy, user-friendly spaces inside larger gestures.
He's a triple citizen of Canada, Israel and the United States, three places where the bulk of his buildings can be found: in Canada, the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Vancouver public library. For Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, he designed the Children's Memorial and the Memorial to the Deportees; he's also built airport terminals in Tel Aviv. In the US, he designed the elegant and understated Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Masachusetts, and the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas.
Moshe Safdie | Speaker | TED.com