Pictograms, doodles and more from the radical exponent of mobile architecture

A leading figure in the avant-garde architecture movements of the postwar era, the Hungarian-born French architect, urban planner and designer Yona Friedman (1923-2020) was best known for his theory of mobile architecture. This is the first catalog on Yona Friedman the artist. It presents an extensive collection of visual materials, including drawings, cartoons and pictograms, made by Friedman as a mode of thinking deemed more efficient than language, and for pleasure.

Drawing for my own pleasure meant that I enjoyed looking at my drawings, he writes here, and so I pasted them on the walls of my home, of my studio, on furniture, and on the refrigerator. Indeed, I produced them as the personal landscape of my surroundings, even decorating the ceiling of my atelier at boulevard Pasteur and my home at boulevard Garibaldi.