Altair architect Moshe Safdie named Laureate of 2019 Wolf Prize in Architecture
Moshe Safdie, the architect of Sri Lanka’s paradigmatic high rise edifice Altair, has been named the Laureate in Architecture by the jury committee for the 2019 Wolf Prize, considered the second most important in the world after the Nobel Prize.
To be presented by the President of Israel Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin in the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) in Jerusalem in May, the celebrated Wolf Prize honours Safdie for “a career motivated by the social concerns of architecture and formal experimentation.” Announcing the prize, worth US$ 100,000, the jury said: “Over a long and distinguished career spanning 50 years, Moshe Safdie has produced a body of work of great originality and artistry in the field of architecture and urbanism.
Moshe Safdie’s more recent work includes Marina Bay Sands -- the new icon of Singapore, Jewel Changi Airport -- the stunning mixed-use development due to open in 2019, the Kauffman Centre for the Performing Arts in Kansas City -- rated one of the 15 most spectacular concert halls of the world, the Crystal Bridge Museum of American Art in Arkansas, the Khalsa Heritage Centre in Punjab, the headquarters of the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC, Lester B. Pearson Airport, Toronto, the Yad Vasham Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem, Cairnhill Condominiums in Singapore, the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
Adjudged the Best Condominium in Asia for Architectural Design at the 2018 Asia Real Estate Summit (ARES), Altair is Sri Lanka’s most distinctive and instantly recognised high-rise.