Yona Friedman
1923 - 2020
Born in Boedapest (HU), lives in Paris (FR).
"If a theory is well constructed and spread abroad, it has the advantage of no longer being the property of specialists, but of stemming from the public domain. The present-day monopoly of the architect has to do with the fact that there is no real theory, but merely a set of pseudo-theoriesä in other words, observations which only reflect the preferences of their authors"
During the late 1940's, Hungarian-Jewish architect Yona Friedman was involved in the (re)construction of Israel. His ideas are in diametric opposition to those propounded by Le Corbusier and Modernism. According to Friedman, every individual should be able to design his/her own house; the architect, then, would only stand-in for devising large urban structures. In 1958, Yona Friedman published his first manifesto, *Mobile Architecture*. It describes a new form of mobility, not of the buildings, but for the inhabitants, who would thus acquire new-found freedom. This enduring engagement brought him to a wider investigation of the notion of participation.
