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September 19, 2003

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby, (858) 534-7404

AWARD-WINNING ARCHITECT MOSHE
SAFDIE TO SPEAK AT UCSD OCT. 10

Moshe Safdie, an award-winning architect whose designs range from museums to performing arts centers to universities, will speak about The Architecture of Interaction at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 10 in the auditorium of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. The event is free and open to the public.

Safdie is the executive architect of UCSD’s new campus for Eleanor Roosevelt College (ERC) which is having its grand opening Oct. 6 through 11. His talk is part of the weeklong festivities.

Safdie orchestrated the ERC development of 12 acres on the UCSD campus which includes residence halls, apartments, dining facilities, administrative and ancillary services, and an International House. Taal Safdie and Ricardo Rabines of Safdie Rabines Architects in San Diego, were local partners in the project.

The $106 million ERC project opening marks the first time that an entire college has been designed and built at one time at UCSD. The other five colleges – Roger Revelle, John Muir, Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren and Sixth College – have grown building by building over a period of years.

In an introduction to the book, Moshe Safdie, editor Wendy Kohn writes: “Timelessness, in the view of Moshe Safdie, is the most meaningful quality one can ascribe to a building. His design process, however, focuses unrelentingly on the daily life of the architecture; the way spaces will be used; the building’s performance in its climate; the real desire of the prospective inhabitants.”

This dichotomy, says Kohn, is the essence of Safdie’s work: “Monumental, dramatic, ceremoniously public.”

Safdie’s award-winning firm’s major projects include the Habitat ’67, Montreal; the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles; Vancouver Library Square and Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Ottawa City Hall, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; the Harvard Business School’s Morgan Hall, Cambridge, Mass.; the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Salt Lake City Library.

In particular designations, such as those for UCSD, Safdie writes: “In designing a school, we must ask the fundamental question: what makes a wonderful place for learning? There are obviously many reasons. We search for the most appropriate solution in the context of each particular place and time.”

Safdie received his bachelor’s degree in architecture at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and has been the principal officer at Moshe Safdie and Associates Inc., Architects and Planners, based in Boston, Mass., since 1978. The firm has branch offices in Jerusalem and Toronto.

In addition to Safdie’s Oct.10 lecture, events marking the opening of UCSD’s Eleanor Roosevelt College include: A convocation featuring Samantha Power, Pulitzer prize-winning author of A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, 7 p.m., Oct. 8, RIMAC Arena, and a Global Village Street Fair, noon to 4 p.m., Oct. 11, Scholars Drive on the UCSD campus.

For further information on the new Eleanor Roosevelt College campus at UCSD, please visit the website at http://roosevelt.ucsd.edu or call (858) 534-2247. Further information on Safdie can be obtained at www.msafdie.com.