Hadid, Some Final Thoughts
Sunday's New York Times features another article (registration req'd) on Zaha Hadid by the paper's architecture critic Herbert Muschamp. Without mentioning the controversy around the Pritzker Prize, Muschamp professes his love for the British architect's buildings, projects and drawings. While the article contains boisterous sentences like, "...designer of some of the greatest architecture never built" and, "she is the greatest virtuoso of form now living," his attempt to elucidate the appeal of her work and persona is partly successful. Muschamp's statement, "Hadid is a great poet of circulation as a modern way of life," may also be boisterous, but to me it comes close to summing up her work.
I have mentioned elsewhere that her designs have a consistency in form, specifically long and skinny spaces. From early, unbuilt projects like the Peak in Hong Kong to an office building in Hamburg, she's squeezed functions and circulation into narrow spaces, often as creative responses to tight sites. Buildings like the Vitra Fire Station and State Flower Pavilion (both in Weil am Rhein, Germany) extend this linearity to the point where the former is no longer used as intended. But the latter outlived its temporary function to become a permanent landmark in the town, also signaling a change in her architecture as curves entered her design vocabulary.
These long, skinny spaces embody movement (circulation) simply through their linearity and direction, getting back to Muschamp's quote. Looking at the slide show that accompanies the Times article, projects under construction in Leipzig, Germany and Rome and Naples, Italy continue these curving paths. It almost seems natural that she would design a ski jump in Austria, its form above an extension of the ramp it serves. If any poetry exists, it is found in the way she creates these spaces for people to move through, elevating them beyond their function as connectors by making the buildings an expression of this movement. Admittedly this can cause problems functionally, as in the fire station, and I see this as something she needs to resolve to become truly worthy of the prize she's been given.
State Flower Pavilion by Hadid - Portrait from New York Times.
With only six completed projects to date - the CAC in Cincinnati, the two projects in Weil am Rhein mentioned earlier, the ski jump, the Mind Zone in the Millennium Dome and a car park and tram terminal in Strasbourg - it is obvious her selection for the Pritzker is due mainly to the success of the first, which opened last year. Regardless, it strikes me as an interesting, yet tame (for her), urban infill project. Her main idea, the "urban carpet" that enters the building, is not a new idea (Mies brought the plaza inside many times), but the novel manner of continuing the ground plane up the wall could have been more overt in execution, at least from the exterior. Perhaps a different shading of concrete than the boxes would have helped. Inside the idea appears stronger as the floor curves into wall, the stairs following alongside. Here, again, Hadid uses circulation - this time vertical - to set up the building design, though its exterior consists of boxes that express the gallery spaces rather than the vertical movement. Maybe the stasis of the boxes makes the building a timid piece in her opera, though its initial success as a museum and urban element outweigh any formal nitpicking.
So when words like courageous and provocative are thrown around to describe her architecture, one must look beyond the CAC to her other completed projects and those nearing completion for those words to apply. But ultimately her stylish architecture comes down to matters of taste, and people seem to either love, hate or be puzzled or confused by her designs, or moreso the attention they are given. I fall somewhere in the middle, noticing the uniqueness and talent in her drawings but realizing that her architecture will never live up to the energy and complexity they contain. Having seen the Vitra fire station and experienced the Mind Zone, the concrete realizations come close to capturing the potential in her drawings, and that may be enough.
I won't even pretend to be able to put an end to arguments over the worth of Hadid and her Pritzker Prize, though - to be a devil's advocate - maybe the attention needs to be redirected towards the award itself, or to the importance the award is given. Sure, I'm glad we have the Pritzker Prize and I'm glad when somebody I like wins (Ando, Piano, Koolhaas, Herzog & De Meuron), but maybe its criteria, selection process or status should be talked about as much as its outcome.
I have mentioned elsewhere that her designs have a consistency in form, specifically long and skinny spaces. From early, unbuilt projects like the Peak in Hong Kong to an office building in Hamburg, she's squeezed functions and circulation into narrow spaces, often as creative responses to tight sites. Buildings like the Vitra Fire Station and State Flower Pavilion (both in Weil am Rhein, Germany) extend this linearity to the point where the former is no longer used as intended. But the latter outlived its temporary function to become a permanent landmark in the town, also signaling a change in her architecture as curves entered her design vocabulary.
These long, skinny spaces embody movement (circulation) simply through their linearity and direction, getting back to Muschamp's quote. Looking at the slide show that accompanies the Times article, projects under construction in Leipzig, Germany and Rome and Naples, Italy continue these curving paths. It almost seems natural that she would design a ski jump in Austria, its form above an extension of the ramp it serves. If any poetry exists, it is found in the way she creates these spaces for people to move through, elevating them beyond their function as connectors by making the buildings an expression of this movement. Admittedly this can cause problems functionally, as in the fire station, and I see this as something she needs to resolve to become truly worthy of the prize she's been given.
State Flower Pavilion by Hadid - Portrait from New York Times.
With only six completed projects to date - the CAC in Cincinnati, the two projects in Weil am Rhein mentioned earlier, the ski jump, the Mind Zone in the Millennium Dome and a car park and tram terminal in Strasbourg - it is obvious her selection for the Pritzker is due mainly to the success of the first, which opened last year. Regardless, it strikes me as an interesting, yet tame (for her), urban infill project. Her main idea, the "urban carpet" that enters the building, is not a new idea (Mies brought the plaza inside many times), but the novel manner of continuing the ground plane up the wall could have been more overt in execution, at least from the exterior. Perhaps a different shading of concrete than the boxes would have helped. Inside the idea appears stronger as the floor curves into wall, the stairs following alongside. Here, again, Hadid uses circulation - this time vertical - to set up the building design, though its exterior consists of boxes that express the gallery spaces rather than the vertical movement. Maybe the stasis of the boxes makes the building a timid piece in her opera, though its initial success as a museum and urban element outweigh any formal nitpicking.
So when words like courageous and provocative are thrown around to describe her architecture, one must look beyond the CAC to her other completed projects and those nearing completion for those words to apply. But ultimately her stylish architecture comes down to matters of taste, and people seem to either love, hate or be puzzled or confused by her designs, or moreso the attention they are given. I fall somewhere in the middle, noticing the uniqueness and talent in her drawings but realizing that her architecture will never live up to the energy and complexity they contain. Having seen the Vitra fire station and experienced the Mind Zone, the concrete realizations come close to capturing the potential in her drawings, and that may be enough.
I won't even pretend to be able to put an end to arguments over the worth of Hadid and her Pritzker Prize, though - to be a devil's advocate - maybe the attention needs to be redirected towards the award itself, or to the importance the award is given. Sure, I'm glad we have the Pritzker Prize and I'm glad when somebody I like wins (Ando, Piano, Koolhaas, Herzog & De Meuron), but maybe its criteria, selection process or status should be talked about as much as its outcome.