Hungarian-born French architect Yona Friedman passed away at 96, yesterday night in Paris, as reported by her daughter.

Yona Friedman is recognized as one of the pioneers of the twentieth century, who was ahead of his time and proposed ideas and projects that have been developed by others after decades.

Friedman reconsidered the metropolitan character of architecture, his projects re-interpret the contemporary city, establishing a dialogue with the existing city. In his social utopias on Mobile Architecture he reflects on the ownership of land and citizen participation.

Among Friedman's proposals stands out the colonization of Manhattan, as a recognition of the city of the twentieth century, a vision that later found echo in the works of Archigram, Rem Koolhas or Bernard Tschumi.

A trajectory and revolutionary ideas of an emblematic French architect, Yona Friedman.
 
“Titan amongst architects, who is hugely respected by the established figures of the profession as well as those practitioners who are at the beginning of their careers. Throughout his working life of over six decades he has been uncompromising in rigor and visionary in his thinking. He has been enormously influential as a ‘feasible utopian’ architect, urban theorist, designer and teacher."
After 96 years on this earth, Yona has moved up to build a Spatial City and install some Space Chains in the sky. The Fonds de Dotation Denise and Yona Friedman, which he founded last year, will continue his work. Après 96 ans sur cette terre Yona est monté construire une Ville Spatiale dans le ciel. Le Fonds de Dotation Denise et Yona Friedman qu'il avait créé l'année dernière continuera son travail.
 
The theory of Mobile Architecture, conceived by Friedman in 1950s, called into question the Modernist vision whereby the inhabitants are required to adapt to a building and not the reverse: through sketches, models and animations the exhibition recounts the development of this theory while at the same time exploring the theme of improvisation as a “possibility” in the world of architecture, as theorised by Friedman from the 1970s.

Architecture Mobile

The Architecture Mobile (Mobile Architecture) manifesto largely affected the urban planning of the late Twentieth Century, and gave rise to a new ideology by deeply influencing the architectural planning of more recent experimental groups, especially the Metabolist Movement in Japan, the Archigram group in the United Kingdom and others.

Friedman studied how to develop an architectural structure able to respond to the heterogeneity of the social system, namely the awareness citizens are to have of their spatial needs. Such a vision, which attaches the greatest importance to those who use architectural objects instead of architects, leads to the need for an easily movable mobile architecture to suit the spatial needs of inhabitants. Indeed, common people, who are at the core of the decision-making process despite not being specialised, have the freedom to make their own architecture come true.

The Ville Spatiale (Spatial Town), namely a project based on shapes and structures which can allegedly be modified an infinite number of times, is the best implementation of the Mobile Architecture model.
Subtitles in English, click on CC

 

More information

Yona Friedman was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1923, and pass away Paris, France, February 21, 2020. He studied at the Technical University in Budapest (Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem) and in Haifa. His work has spanned areas ranging from architecture, art and animated film to education and writing. He has participated in numerous art biennials including Shanghai, Venice and Documenta 11. His highly visionary ideas have nurtured various generations of architects and urbanists, influencing groups such as Archigram and even Kenzo Tange, who declared as such in 1970 in Osaka.

In 1956 he published L'architecture mobile, his manifesto which conceived of an urban structure on piles, appropriate for spaces where building is not possible or permitted. This also became the foundational document of the GEAM, Groupe d'étude d'architecture mobile. He created urban concepts such as the Spatial City, based on the free organisation of a city by citizens using low-cost mobile and reusable modules. In 1965 he founded, together with Ionel Schein, Walter Jonas and others, the GIAP, Groupe International d'Architecture Prospective.

From the 1960’s he also became interested in animated film making which would lead him to propose a series of do-it-yourself construction manuals with simple pictograms addressing basic questions, which we could summarise under the title L´habitat c’est mon affaire. Comment habiter la terre (Habitat is my business: how to inhabit the earth). These were edited by the United Nations and given broad distribution in India, South America and Africa.

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Published on: February 21, 2020
Cite: "Yona Friedman passes away at 96" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/yona-friedman-passes-away-96> ISSN 1139-6415
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