Renowned architect Moshe Safdie rejected offer to design the MUHC Glen Superhospital – Predicted disaster

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“I predicted a disaster, I think I was right. Look what they’ve done: it’s a shame!”

The person who led the project for McGill, the late Arthur Porter, had approached architect Moshe Safdie with one of the biggest projects of the last decades in the province: The McGill University Health Center (MUHC).
Safdie is best known to the general public for his iconic residential complex Habitat 67.  However he has contributed to the realization of other significant projects, such as the main pavilion of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Library Square and the Musée de la civilization of Quebec.
His enthusiasm for the design of the MUHC was nonetheless short-lived, when the Government of Quebec began talking about PPP [public-private partnership] for the management and construction of this mega-hospital project.
“The PPP structure encourages the private sector to use the smallest budget and the most simplistic strategy to accomplish the job. The government sets a price and less [the developer] spends along the way, the more money it makes. How do you get new ideas, architectural innovation, for these buildings? ”
“I predicted a disaster,” he continues. I think I was right. Look what they’ve done: it’s a shame! […] I did not even dare to go inside. It shocks me. It is as if they wanted to insult [the architecture of Montreal].”
Source: ici.radio-canada.ca

About Moshe Safdie:

Moshe Safdie, CC, architect, professor, urban planner, educator, theorist, author (born 14 July 1938 in Haifa, Israel). A Companion of the Order of Canada, Moshe Safdie’s architectural designs include residential housing, galleries, fine arts complexes, parks, airports, museums, colleges, libraries, government buildings, memorials, masterplans and multi-use complexes. He is perhaps best known in Canada for the Habitat 67 housing complex in Montréal, the National Gallery in Ottawa and Vancouver Library Square. Safdie’s influence is wide reaching, covering nearly 100 projects on five continents. His Boston-based office has extended its branches to Jerusalem, Toronto, Singapore and Shanghai. (Source The Canadian Library)