Friedeberg was born in Florence, Italy, on January 11, 1936, the son of German-Jewish parents, Friedeberg arrived in Mexico at the age of three. Having shown an early inclination for drawing and reading, he studied architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana, where he was profoundly influenced by the teaching of Mathias Goeritz, a German-Mexican artist. Under Goeritz influence he created architectural models that fused diverse elements into single structures and were often designed to be non-fictional. His educational background ranged from medieval to Art Nouveau and his work anticipated postmodernism.

In 1960, Friedeberg was invited to join a group based on Dadaist principles: the creation of anti-art f...