
At 92 years of age, for his entire career Yona Friedman has occupied an unusual spot within the architecture world; his signature concept, the Ville Spatiale which he first proposed in 1956, combines the top-down megastructural thinking visible in later projects such as Archigram's Plug-In City with a total freedom for occupants to design and build their own homes within the structure. In this installment of his “City of Ideas” column, Vladimir Belogolovsky interviews Friedman at his home in Paris to talk about the Ville Spatiale and his theories of mobile and improvised architecture.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: Yesterday, I went to the Pompidou Centre here in Paris with its magnificent colors – blue for air, yellow for electricity, green for water, and red for circulation – and I saw your drawing and model for Ville Spatiale displayed in the permanent collection of the museum. Could you talk about your own 1970 competition entry for the Center?
