Introduction
Zaha Hadid is a contemporary Iraqi female architect who has been increasingly making a name for herself in the international arena in the field of architecture.
Hadid’s strong point
Hadid’s strong point has been her trait of personal forcefulness that has enabled her to evade weak projects and weak customers and concentrate on creating forceful architecture. She was one of many revolutionary architects graduating from the Architectural Association of London, who rejected traditional modernism and postmodernism while striving to attain the maximum level of new modernism that embodied lofty ideas of history and human identity while blending modern disarray and disjuncture. Taking a finer line, Hadid adopted the style of neo-modernist architecture of baroque modernism first introduced by classicists such as Borromini. Following this style, she began favoring dizzying spaces, shattering formal space-bound structures with walls, ceilings, and right angles, and replacing them with a new fluid relation to space involving several perspective points and fragmented geometry to simulate the disarray in modern life (Designmuseum.org).
Hadid’s style of architecture
Hadid’s style of architecture produces the solid apparatus to create an illusion of space as if it moves and alters shape as we move along. The flowing, open nature of her style comprises a witty reaction to the increasingly reinforced and undemocratic urban landscapes of modern times. Hadid puts forward her architectural ideas in the form of impressionistic, abstract paintings explicitly meant to convey the feel of radical, fluid spaces, posturing that traditional architectural drawings could not get across the ‘feel’ of spaces as only paintings could. Clients at first hesitated to invest money on projects based on Hadid’s peculiar style of architecture (Designmuseum.org), but gradually one project after another came her way, the pace accelerating as her success story grew.
Hadid has created a large number of architectural successes. Some of them are the Architectural Foundation, London , Serpentine Pavilion, London , Transport Museum, Glasgow , Civil Courts of Justice, Madrid , Lilium Tower, Warsaw , Innovation Tower , Cable Railway Station, Nordpark , The Opus, Dubai , Performing Arts Center, Abu Dhabi , Opera House, Guangzhou , Pierre Vives Building, Montpellier (E-architect.co.uk), and the Car Park and Terminus, Strasbourg (About.com).
Two of her most famous works are in the U.S – the Price Tower Arts Center and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (About.com).
The Price Tower Arts Center
The former, begun in 2002 and yet to be completed, is meant as a Study Center with an adjacent store to accommodate increasing collections of works on paper. It covers an area of 50,000 square meters. It is not enforced on the Price Tower itself, but emanates out of the site’s designs of living and landscape, not cowering before the Tower or deferring to it, but interacting sensuously with it, coiling around it with strong seductive contours that emphasize the powerful verticality of the Tower. The two buildings, constructed about 50 years apart, are joined together harmoniously as though they were always meant for one another (About.com).
The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art
The Rosenthal Center is undoubtedly Hadid’s masterpiece, one that shut up all her critics who protested that her style of architecture was impracticable (Designermuseum.org). It is a temporary exhibition area, performance area, education facility, office space, art preparation space, and museum storage area covering an area of 8,500 square meters (About.com). It has several perspective points and fragmented geometry meant to simulate the chaos of present-day life (Designmuseum.org). To attract unsuspecting pedestrians from adjacent areas and to produce a perception of dynamic public space, Hadid has organized the gateway lobby and lead-in to the circulation system as an ‘Urban Carpet.’
Beginning at the juncture of Sixth and Walnut, the ground winds to the north as it enters the building, ultimately becoming its back wall (About.com). In juxtaposition to the Urban Carpet, the galleries are contained in horizontal, rectangular tubes between which strip-like ramps wind skywards (Designermuseum.org). The galleries hover over the lobby, appearing as it was hewn from one massive block of concrete. The structure’s south facade forms a sinuously transparent skin through which people can look into the building. The east facade is a sculptural contrast that supplies an imprint of gallery interiors (About.com). The magnificence of the building is such that the New York Times called it in simple terms “the most important new building in America since the Cold War” (Designmuseum.org).
Awards
Zaha Hadid, then 53 years old, was awarded the coveted Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004. The words of Thomas J. Pritzker, when he announced the prize are poignantly significant: “It is gratifying to us as sponsors of the Prize to see our very independent jury honor a woman for the first time [in its 26 year history]. Although her [Hadid’s] body of work is relatively small, she has achieved great acclaim, and her energy and ideas show even greater promise for the future” (Pritzkerprize.com).
Zaha Hadid, who was born in 1950, continues to reside and operate from Britain, she adopted home (Designmuseum.org).
References
“Zaha Hadid.” About.com. 2008. Web.
“Zaha Hadid.” Designmuseum.org. 2007. Web.
“Zaha Hadid – Architecture.” E-architect.co.uk. 2008. Web.
“Zaha Hadid Becomes the First Woman to Receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize.” 2004. Web.
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