Ranked among the elite architects practising in the world today, Moshe Safdie is, beyond
question an architect of great cultural importance. One of the primary means of understanding
Safdie's singular contribution to contemporary architecture is the archival record.
The Canadian Architecture Collection located at McGill University is the principal repository
of more than 100,000 drawings, models and personal papers that constitute the Moshe Safdie
Archive. In 1993, the Canadian Architecture Collection was the recipient of a $180,000 SSHRC
research grant to catalogue the extensive holdings of the Safdie Archive. The result of this
grant was the publication in 1996, of the award-winning, Moshe Safdie : Buildings and
Projects, 1967-1992. A major retrospective exhibition of Safdie's work is being developed by
McGill University as part of its millennium celebration. The exhibition is scheduled to open in 2001
at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Since 1995, the Canadian Architecture Collection has undertaken an ambitious digitization
program which has garnered awards and support from a number of federal agencies. The results
can be viewed on the CAC's World Wide Web Site (http://cac.mcgill.ca/). Among the
collections with basic access on the website is the Moshe Safdie Archive. Given the exceptional
richness and scope of research material in the Safdie Archive, the website provides an
ideal platform for a large-scale, special project which will serve as a conceptual and
pedagogical model for the study of the works of contemporary Canadian architects.
What members of the CAC staff have conceived is a unique and ambitious project that will
revolutionize the model for a research site of a living architect. It will comprise two
elements: a virtual exhibit and an online hypermedia archive. Together, the exhibit and
archive will serve as a conceptual and pedagogical model found nowhere else in Canada,
documenting Safdie's career from architectural studies to professional practice and worldwide
acclaim. Based on our previous innovative projects for Industry Canada (Building Canada, 1996;
Ramsay Traquair, 1997) we are committed to producing cutting-edge, content rich, websites at
McGill University and for the Canadian and international educational community as a whole.
The initial website served as a catalyst
for the virtual exhibition, forming the infrastructure for the retrospective exhibition scheduled
to begin in November 2001 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In preparing
the kinetic virtual exhibition, the present website will be enriched at all levels.
The project inventory available to date only on CD-ROM will be made available for the first
time on the Safdie Website. Each existing and new project will be documented with a complete
set of representative images/drawings, project file material, and related media.
The extensive holding's of the Safdie archives reveal that modern architectural practice
differs in certain important respects from those of the past. For example, the volume of
material documenting the design work of a practising architect today is many times larger
than that of architects from the 19th and early 20th century (Maxwell, Nobbs, Traquair) and
therefore needs continual monitoring and upgrading. The digital technology offers an ideal
medium to provide both access to and the essence of each project.
The Moshe Safdie Archive is a continual process. Building upon previous work, such as the
publication, and the existing website, the ultimate product will be a contemporary model
juxtaposing archival documentation and new technology for worldwide dissemination. With
completion of the virtual exhibit and the hypermedia archive, the CAC will launch Phase II
of the hypermedia archival project by pursuing an international component through the
involvement of other architectural centres around the world, which share a common interest:
the architectural achievement of Moshe Safdie.
Project Credits
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