Moshe Safdie presentation attracts an audience of 350 people

Date: November 20, 2008

Author: Kauffman Center

Kauffman Center architect Moshe Safdie visited Kansas City in mid-October.  His busy schedule included a public presentation at the Kansas City, Missouri Public Library.  To the delight of the 350 people who filled the main hall at the downtown Central Library, Safdie placed the Kauffman Center in a worldwide constellation of architectural masterpieces, through his presentation entitled “Cultural Institutions for the 21st Century.” 

Introduced by Crosby Kemper and Jane Chu (seen with Safdie in the photo to the left), Moshe Safdie began his presentation by quoting Nobel Laureate Octavia Paz’s criticism of modern architecture:  that the market is blind and deaf--all about price not about value.  Paz has asked, “Is there not another ethic to architecture?”

Safdie responds “Yes, there is” to Paz’s challenge and used this challenge as a launching pad for a discussion about public architecture, with a special focus on cultural institutions.  He emphasized a need to consider the materials we employ and the resources these buildings consume, challenging builders to determine if a structure is “inherently buildable.”

Then he talked about the need of architecture to be responsible to a specific purpose and to consider how it relates to the life inside it. He stated, “Let the building be its defined purpose.”

Finally Safdie shared his belief that a design should be rooted to a place.  Architects should consider whether the building belongs to its site in a way that is unique to that place.  Or is it transferable and could be built anywhere.  Safdie prefers the former.

He illustrated these points and made many others, using a dazzling slide show of cultural institutions he has designed and built around the world.   The audience was transported to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Canada, with its unusual configuration of exterior walls of glass and galleries at the center.  Then on to the Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex in Punjab, India which straddles a ravine and is connected by a ceremonial bridge over pools that are traditional parts of Sikh culture.  (To see these, and many other Safdie projects, visit the Safdie and Associates website.)

The audience took a tour through the Yad Vahern Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, which literally cuts through a hillside and emerges, with a sense of great hope, to a glorious view of the valley.   Other sites were visited before we returned to Kansas City to consider the Kauffman Center’s place in Safdie’s vision of great cultural arts institutions.  Safdie was full of praise for Kansas City’s vision and ambition.  "Creating this building is grand opera,” Safdie stated.  Everything must come together and work together because any failure makes it less successful. 

“Harmony is key to successful design of the building,”  Safdie stressed.  “We have a great team and have had a great time working together.  The Kauffman Center is destined to do so many things in and beyond its performing arts role.”

See our photo album of this event, which was hosted by the Kansas City, Missouri Public Library.