Friedmann studied design at the University of Chicago and was then employed at the Tennesse Valley Authority. Further stations of his professional career were in South America and Korea. He began his scientific career at MIT in 1961 and took him to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught as a university lecturer and scientist the most important accents of his academic career. He had a lot of contacts with planning schools all over the world, including the faculty of spatial planning.
In 1988, formal ties between Friedmann and the school of Spatial Planning were established through Prof. Dr. Klaus Kunzmann who honoured the legendary scholar and practitioner with a Doctorate from TU Dortmund.
