Marvin Paul Friedberg, FASLA (October 11, 1931 – February 15, 2025) was an Americanlandscape architect known for his work on playful public spaces.[6][7]
M. Paul Friedberg was born inBrooklyn, New York, on October 11, 1931, the only son of Mary (Bennett) Friedberg and Morris Friedberg, a milk inspector.[8][6] During his childhood, his family moved toWinfield, Pennsylvania, where he went to elementary school in aone-room schoolhouse,[8] and then toMiddletown, New York, where he attended Middletown High School.[9][10] In 1954 he graduated fromCornell University with a Bachelor of Science degree in horticulture.[6] He said that "after navigating four socially active years the reality of growing up set in."[11] He said that his largest influence for pursuing landscape architecture was the chance to connect people to themselves, to each other and to their environment.
In 1958, four years after graduating, Friedberg opened his landscape practice, M. Paul Friedberg and Partners.[12] The contributions the firm has made to the aesthetic environment of urban life have been revolutionary in design and intent. Here, he soon became a leading Landscape Architect of new public spaces. All of which included plazas, main strip malls, and small vest-pocket parks. Paul Friedberg also established the first undergraduate landscape architecture program in a major city at theCity College of New York, focusing on the social and physical issues inherent to an urban environment.
In 1965, Friedberg designed an innovative play area atJacob Riis Plaza that would later be demolished in 2000. This innovative play area was created to allow children of different ages to utilize the many different structures including a series of pyramids, mounds, and a tunnel in many ways.[13]
Friedberg continued his design work until late in life, commenting it is "not a bad way to spend [my] day" and summarizing his philosophy, upon reception of his 2015 ASLA medal, as follows:
Design is a personal journey. The fact that I have the power to alter the appearance and content of a site merely by placing ideas on a piece of paper or a screen, is an ongoing adventure-and exploration into the unknown about how space and form can direct human response. It is about the discovery of myself, my aesthetic preference and social values at a given point in time. I create three-dimensionally what the writer accomplishes with words. It is not without anxiety, as the ideas haven't a reality until cast in a space and experienced.[11]
He was married to the landscape architect Dorit Shahar, and they had a daughter, Maya.[14] He previously had two sons, Mark and Jeffrey, with his first wife, Esther Hidary, who were married to each other for two decades until she died in 1982.[3][15] Friedberg died of complications fromCOVID-19 at a hospital in New York City on February 15, 2025, at the age of 93.[7][15][16]
One of Friedberg's most notable projects was the Jacob Riis Plaza, undertaken in the mid-1960s. TheJacob Riis Complex is a series of 14-story buildings along theLower East Side ofManhattan. The large open spaces between the blocks were poorly laid out, with little consideration of the residents' needs. Friedberg's redesign separated the space into human scaled areas using pergolas, terraces and mounds. Materials and features were selected for their robustness, for example large timbers, and vandal resistant lighting.
Yerba Buena playground in San Francisco, designed by M. Paul Friedberg
