Member Blog: David Zilberman

“If Walls Could Speak” by Moshe Safdie -Architecture and Lessons for Economics

Moshe Safdie is a master builder, a world leading architect who aims to address people’s social problems by designing buildings. I first met Moshe Safdie when we were recipients of the Wolf Prize. Safdie radiated the quiet authority of someone whose work speaks for itself, yet he was generous with his time and insights. He guided the recipients and their families through one of his signature creations in Jerusalem: the Mamilla development, a project that connects the two halves of the city, adjacent to the Old City walls. Walking beside him, I sensed that this was not just another commercial development but a meditation on coexistence. Here was architecture as diplomacy: ancient stone blended with modern design, sacred and secular, Jewish and Arab, commerce and spirituality. Years later, reading his memoir If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture (Safdie 2022), I relived that moment. The book is captivating not only as a personal journey but as a profound philosophical statement. It is also, for me as an economist, a reminder that one understands one’s own discipline more fully by studying the leaders of others.

A Life in Architecture

Safdie’s life story reads like a modern epic. Born in Haifa in 1938 to a Sephardic family of Syrian descent, he grew up in a society that both offered opportunity and imposed barriers. His family was relatively affluent, but as Sephardim they were not fully accepted into the Ashkenazi-dominated elite of early Israel. This tension between belonging and exclusion shaped his worldview, giving him both resilience and empathy. At 15, Safdie moved to Montreal. His brilliance soon found expression in architecture, and at 29 he produced his breakthrough: Habitat 67, the modular housing project designed for the Montreal Expo. Its concrete blocks stacked like Lego created a new model of urban living. Safdie recalls: “I had been given an impossible task, with impossible constraints. Yet it was precisely these constraints that unleashed invention” (Safdie, 2022, p. 74). From that moment, his career became global. He designed airports in Canada, museums in Arkansas, housing in Singapore, bridges in India. Each project was different, but each bore his signature: an insistence that architecture must serve humanity. “Buildings are not sculptures,” he writes. “They must work, they must breathe, they must dignify” (p. 128)

My encounters with Safdie gave the book added resonance. Visiting his Arkansas museum, I was struck by how the building seemed to grow out of the landscape, uniting art and nature. Walking with him through Mamilla, I saw firsthand how he reconciled contradictions—sacred and secular, old and new, divided yet connected.

Reading his memoir was like revisiting those moments. The pages felt personal, a continuation of conversations begun years ago. His voice in print matched the man I knew passionate, reflective, unpretentious.

The Glamour and the Gravity

Safdie’s book is also candid about the glamour of being a world-famous architect. He mingled with the rich and powerful, from kings to philanthropists. He designed iconic landmarks that became part of national identity. Unlike economists, who rarely make headlines, architects become celebrities, shaping skylines and cultures. One of the most touching stories in the book is his relationship with Yitzhak Rabin. Safdie admired Rabin’s courage in pursuing peace. He recalls their conversations with warmth, describing him as a man of both humility and vision. The assassination of Rabin was a personal and professional wound. Safdie was asked to design Rabin’s grave, and he did so with profound simplicity: “I wanted his resting place to echo the man himself— austere, modest, yet enduring” (p. 283). Reading this was painful for me as well. Like Safdie, I was devastated by Rabin’s death. It was not only the loss of a leader but the loss of possibility. The opportunities for peace that evaporated with his death continue to haunt the Middle East. Safdie’s grave design stands as both tribute and lament: a reminder of what was, and what might have been.

The Philosophical Core and Lessons for Economists

What elevates If Walls Could Speak above a standard memoir, is its philosophical depth. Safdie argues that architecture is not just about structures, but about human experience. He rejects both pure functionalism and pure spectacle. Instead, he insists on a balance between utility and beauty. “The true test of a building,” he notes, “is not whether it dazzles at its opening but whether, fifty years later, it still makes life better for those who inhabit it” (p. 201). This struck me as an economist. Our discipline, too, is about designing systems that last. We construct policies, markets, and supply chains that must endure beyond the immediate. Safdie’s emphasis on longevity—on buildings that grow into their surroundings—is a lesson for us. An economic model or institution must likewise be judged not by its immediate efficiency but by its resilience and humanity over time. Safdie is also deeply spiritual, though not religious. He speaks of architecture as a calling, a devotion to humanity rather than to any deity. “I build,” he writes, “not to serve God but to serve humanity. If there is holiness in what I do, it lies in the dignity it confers” (p. 302). Economists, reading this, might ask themselves: are our equations merely technical, or do they also confer dignity?

Reading Safdie made me reflect on several lessons for my own field: 

Constraints as Catalysts – Habitat 67 was born from impossibility. “The more they told me it could not be done, the more I knew I had to try” (p. 66). For economists, this is a reminder that scarcity and limitation are not only problems but opportunities for innovation. Climate change, drought, or resource limits can drive creativity rather than despair.

Utility beyond material needs – Safdie insists that architecture must nurture the spirit. “A home must be more than walls and a roof; it must allow its inhabitants to feel they belong” (p. 119). Economists, likewise, must see welfare as more than consumption. Belonging, fairness, and identity are part of human well-being.

Beauty as Necessity – Safdie defends beauty not as luxury but as a human need. “To build without beauty is to diminish those who live within” (p. 147). In economics, the analogy is clear: policies that maximize efficiency while eroding dignity or justice are incomplete.

Design as Diplomacy is Jerusalem projects embody architecture as a peace-making force. “Every stone laid here is also a statement about who belongs. I wanted to build in a way that said: we all belong” (p. 214). Economists, too, must treat trade, migration, and development as not merely technical but relational, requiring trust and mutual recognition.

Heterogeneity and Fit – Perhaps the most powerful lesson for economics is Safdie’s insistence that architecture must fit its context. No single design works everywhere. A museum in Arkansas cannot be a replica of one in Singapore; a housing complex in Jerusalem must respond to different cultural and historical realities than one in Montreal. “Every place demands its own solution, drawn from its landscape, its culture, its people” (p. 189).

This resonates strongly with my own research. Markets, technologies, and institutions do not behave uniformly across regions or populations. Adoption patterns differ, preferences vary, and constraints evolve in distinct ways. Just as architects study the terrain and culture before sketching a line, economists must understand local context before designing a policy. The “one-size-fits-all” approach fails because it ignores heterogeneity—the diversity of resources, incentives, and human behaviors that define our world.

Safdie’s architecture teaches that “fit” is not “compromise”—it is excellence shaped by empathy. Economists, too, must embrace diversity and adaptation as the essence of good design. Context is not noise; it is the condition for meaningful solutions

Economics Through Architecture

The greatest gift of this book, for me, was how it illuminated my own discipline. Economists often pride themselves on abstraction, reducing life to equations. Safdie refuses reduction. He insists on the messy fullness of human life. His architecture is not only about efficiency but about meaning. Economics should be the same. Our task is not simply to allocate resources but to design systems that uplift. Safdie’s insistence that “Every building makes a statement about who we are and what we value” (p. 91) could be translated directly into economics: every policy, every market, every trade-off expresses values. The question is whether those values ennoble or diminish us.

Conclusion

If Walls Could Speak is more than a memoir. It is a philosophical reflection, a moral testament, and a design manifesto. It shows us a boy from Haifa who became a global architect, rubbing shoulders with presidents and designing landmarks that endure. It also shows us a man of humility, who believes architecture is ultimately about humanity. It was written by an architect, but it provides lessons for all disciplines. 

For economists, this book is invaluable. It reveals our discipline through another lens. Like architects, we are designers, working under constraints. Like them, we must aspire not only to functionality but to dignity, not only to growth but to belonging. And like them, we must remember that one size does not fit all: heterogeneity, context, and fit are not obstacles to design—they are its essence. Safdie’s friendship with Rabin, and the grave he designed, remind us of the opportunities lost when peace is deferred. His buildings remind us that beauty is not optional. And his philosophy reminds us that walls do speak—and when they do, they can tell stories of fit, dignity, and coexistence.

References

• Safdie, Moshe. If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2022.
• Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial. 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.