Friedman (1923 – 2020) was a Hungarian-born French architect, urban planner and designer. He became famous in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the so-called age of megastructures. Yona Friedman’s work spans urban models, theoretical texts and animated films. He participated in several biennial art exhibitions, including Shanghai, Venice and Documenta. His visionary, ground-breaking ideas have been at the forefront for several generations of architects and urban planners, and have clearly influenced the likes of Arata Isozaki or Bernard Tschumi.
In 1956, he published his “Manifeste de l’architecture Mobile,” which set an urban structure on piles suitable for areas where building had not been possible. This text was in turn used as the founding document of the Groupe d’étude d’architecture mobile (GEAM). He developed urban concepts such as La ville spatiale-the Spatial City where dwellings are freely distributed by citizens thanks to low-cost, reusable mobile models.
POSTED in 2013