Moshe Safdie

Moshe Safdie (born July 14, 1938) is an Israeli-Canadian-American architect, urban designer, educator, and author whose career spans over five decades, focusing on innovative, socially responsive designs that incorporate modular prefabrication, public amenities, and environmental integration. A citizen of Israel, Canada, and the United States, Safdie graduated from McGill University in 1961, apprenticed under Louis Kahn, and founded his own firm in Montreal in 1964. His breakthrough project, Habitat '67—a stacked modular housing complex developed from his master's thesis and constructed for Expo 67—challenged conventional urban residential forms by creating terraced landscapes with private gardens atop prefabricated units. Safdie's portfolio includes landmark cultural and civic structures such as the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort in Singapore, the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum expansion in Jerusalem, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore, alongside master plans for urban developments across North America, Asia, and the Middle East. Among his recognitions are the 2015 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects, the 2019 Wolf Prize in Architecture, the Gold Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada.

Moshe Safdie was born on July 14, 1938, in Haifa, then part of Mandatory Palestine, to a Syrian-Jewish family with roots in Aleppo. His father, a textile importer, had emigrated from Aleppo to Palestine, while his mother hailed from Manchester, England, though her family also originated from Aleppo. The family resided in Haifa during the tumultuous period surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948, amid economic challenges and geopolitical instability in the young state.

In 1953, at age 15, Safdie's family emigrated from Israel to Montreal, Canada, prompted by the Israeli government's nationalization of the textile industry and restrictions on imports, which severely impacted his father's business. This relocation represented a forced migration driven by economic necessity rather than immediate violence, though it occurred against the backdrop of post-independence hardships for many Jewish families from Arab-origin backgrounds. Upon arrival, the Safdies settled in Montreal's diverse urban milieu, where Safdie attended Westmount High School, navigating the cultural and linguistic shifts from Hebrew-speaking Israel to English- and French-dominant Canada.

) Safdie was born into a Sephardic Jewish family of Syrian-Jewish and Lebanese-Jewish descent. He holds Israeli–Canadian–American citizenship.