The Shape of Things to Come Instagram account is a lens through which to think critically about the history of the firm and visualize how themes, typologies, and design processes are carried through its more than sixty years of existence. It is a 9-square distillation of the cultural and social issues that shaped each of the projects.
The interior twelve-page article considered the works of Moshe Safdie, his mentors, and contemporaries, including Louis Kahn, Buckminster Fuller, I.M. Pei, Kenzo Tange, and Paul Rudolph.
The account’s name is borrowed from the theme of a 1971 issue of Newsweek Magazine in which Moshe is featured, discussing his vision for the future of architecture and the need to “design environments that reflect and assist the real lives of human beings.”
Materials like this magazine and the stories surrounding seminal projects in the firm’s history are pulled from the firm’s archive and brought to the surface through The Shape of Things to Come to expand ideas of human need, technological building innovation, and flexibility within design.
At its core, an archive aids in the preservation of historic materials and makes them accessible, often showcasing intention versus reality. The primary source material found within an archive can help contextualize a project, a place, a political movement, and a time. With the help of found video footage and current interviews with Moshe himself, we piece together the stories behind the design. We hear from the architect, but we also hear from student collaborators, the press, and those who will be affected by the proposed buildings. We see how and why projects fail to move forward and why an archive is crucial to preserve the documentation of those designs. Sketches, drawings, study models, and correspondence illustrate critical design shifts, a site before and after intervention, and the final scheme of both built and unbuilt buildings.
In the wake of Habitat ‘67, Moshe Safdie and his team began a
studied exploration into building the future of architecture.
Moshe has always been a visionary thinker, continuously exploring ways architecture can and should evolve to fit the growing needs of society. The projects showcased within The Shape of Things to Come carry the viewer through time and place. The materials chosen to represent the projects highlight ideas, themes, and the undercurrents of time and place that ultimately shaped the final design of each. They show the work of an architect who is a curator of history, unimpeded by the current fashion of the times, to ensure that the form follows function rather than fashion.
Buckminster Fuller gifting Moshe Safdie a charm bracelet ahead of Expo 67 as a token of good fortune handed down from the elder statesmen to the young emerging architect.
Pictured here is a contact sheet of photographs taken at a community planning meeting for Coldspring New Town, Baltimore, Maryland (1972).
“I’m so happy when things go into popular culture because that’s halfway to victory. Once you get cartoons – we had several in the New Yorker, on Habitat and Columbus – it doesn’t matter if it’s flattering or making fun of you,” Moshe Safdie reflecting on the firm’s representation in cartoons.
Visualizing design continues to be a rapidly evolving practice. Throughout its history, Safdie Architects has expressed these innovative design ideas through the most compelling and cutting-edge modeling and image-making tools of the time.
The Shape of Things to Come connects past projects to the design process of the firm today. We look back at historical projects and how they have helped to inform and shape new typologies.