zaha hadid assign1

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THE STUDY OF THE LIFE AND

SELECTED WORKS OF ZAHA

HADID

ARC 601 (CONTEMPORARY PROCESS OF ARCHITECTURE)

2011

by

OGUH EZEDINMA ANOZIE10/17/2011


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INTRODUCTION

Zaha Hadid is an architect who

consistently pushes the boundaries

of architecture and urban design.Her work experiments with new

spatial concepts intensifying

existing urban landscapes in the

pursuit of a visionary aesthetic that

encompasses all fields of design,

ranging from urban scale through to

products, interiors and furniture.

Best known for her seminal built

works (Vitra Fire Station, Land

Formation-One, Bergisel Ski Jump,

Strasbourg Tram Station and

Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary

Art in Cincinnati) her central

concerns involve a simultaneous

engagement in practice, teaching

and research.

LIFE AND CAREER

Zaha Hadid was single-minded from an early age. Born in 1950 in Baghdad, she grew

up in a very different Iraq from the one we know today. The Iraq of her childhood was a

liberal, secular, western-focused country with a fast-growing economy that flourished

until the Baath party took power in 1963, and where her bourgeois intellectual family

played a leading role.. Hadid saw no reason why she should not be equally ambitious.

Female role models were plentiful in liberal Iraq, but in architecture, female role models

anywhere, let alone in the Middle East, were thin on the ground in the 1950s and 1960s.

No matter. After convent school in Baghdad and Switzerland, and a degree in

mathematics at the American University in Beirut, Hadid enrolled at the Architectural

Association in London in 1972.

The AA of the 1970s was the perfect place for ambitious, independently minded

architects would-be to flourish. Under Alvin Boyarski as director, it became the most

fertile place for the architectural imagination, home to a precocious generation of

students and teachers who are now household names, such as Rem Koolhaas, Daniel

Libeskind, Will Alsop and Bernard Tschumi. It was a period when pre-1968 optimistic


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modernism was being abandoned amid

economic uncertainty and cultural

conservatism. In architecture too,

democratic modernism was perceived to

have failed and there was a swing towards

historicist post-modernism and

conservation. The AAs theorists did the

opposite. They rejected kitsch post-

modernism to become still more

modernist. Like snakes shedding their

skins, they discarded the failed utopian

projects of first modernism to think up a

new modernism with a more sophisticated

idea of history and human identity, an

architecture embodying modernitys chaosand disjuncture in its very shape.

After graduating she worked with her

former teachers, Rem Koolhaas and Elia

Zenghelis at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977. But

she didnt last long there. Koolhaas described her at the time as a planet in her own

orbit. Hadid had her own ideas on architecture to nurture. And it was a long incubation.

She started teaching at the AA while developing her own brand of neo-modernist

architecture, one which went back to modernisms roots in the constructivism and

suprematism of the early 20th century. Her graduation project, a hotel on LondonsHungerford Bridge, was called Malevichs Tectonik, after the suprematist Kasimir

Malevich who wrote in 1928: we can only perceive space when we break free from the

earth, when the point of support disappears. Hadids architecture follows suit, creating

a landscape which metaphorically and, perhaps, one day literally seems to take off. It

was with Koolhaas that she met the engineer Peter Rice who gave her support and

encouragement early on, at a time when her work seemed difficult to build. In 1980 she

established her own London-based practice. During the 1980s she also taught at the

Architectural Association. She has also taught at prestigious institutions around the

world.During the 1980s she also taught at the Architectural Association. She has also taught at prestigious

institutions around the world; she held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard

University, the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture, guest professorships

at the Hochschule fr Bildende Knste in Hamburg, the Knowlton School of Architecture, at The Ohio State

University, the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York and the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of

Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut. In addition, she was made

Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an Honorary Fellow of the American


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Institute of Architects.[1] She has been on

the Board of Trustees of The Architecture

Foundation. She is currently Professor at the

University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria.

You could call her work

baroque modernism. Baroque

classicists like Borromini shattered

Renaissance ideas of a single

viewpoint perspective in favour of

dizzying spaces designed to lift the

eyes and the heart to God.

Likewise, Hadid shatters both the

classically formal, rule boundmodernism of Mies van der Rohe

and Le Corbusier and the old rules

of space walls, ceilings, front

and back, right angles. She then

reassembles them as what she calls

a new fluid, kind of spatiality of

multiple perspective points and

fragmented geometry, designed to

embody the chaotic fluidity of

modern life.

Hadids architecture denies its own solidity. Short of creating actual forms that

morph and change shape still the stuff of science fiction Hadid creates the solid

apparatus to make us perceive space as if it morphs and changes as we pass through.

Perhaps wisely, she talks little about theory. Unlike, say, Daniel Libeskind, she does not

say that a shape symbolises this or that. And she wears her cultural identity lightly.

Noticeably, and uncharacteristically diplomatically, she has declined to comment on the

situation in Iraq. Instead Hadid lets her spaces speak for themselves. This does not mean

that they are merely exercises in architectural form. Her obsession with shadow and

ambiguity is deeply rooted in Islamic architectural tradition, while its fluid, open nature

is a politically charged riposte to increasingly fortified and undemocratic modern urban

landscapes.

All of which would have been impossible without the advent of computer-aided

design to allow architects almost infinite freedom to create any shape they wanted.


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Actually building these new kinds of spaces

was another matter. Such melodramatic

shapes required significant investment, both

financially and in terms of engineering. In

the 1980s, the first tentative steps were

taken when architects such as Peter

Eisenman and Frank Gehry began the long

process of convincing the public to love

them, and clients to invest in them. Hadid

was picked as part of the seminal

Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition at

the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the

first definitive survey of the new generation.

Critics loved it, but most MoMA visitors found

the new shapes, particularly Hadids,baffling. She presented her ideas in

impressionistic, abstract paintings, designed

to get across the feel of her spaces. Hadid

explained that conventional architectural

drawings could never convey the feel of

her radical, fluid spaces, but paintings could. It took time, though, for people to

understand them.

Slowly, curious clients emerged who were willing to spend money to realise Hadids

peculiar new architecture. It was a stuttering start. Her first big success, The Peak, a spaplanned for Hong Kong, was never built. Nor were buildings on Berlins Kurfrstendamm,

or an art and media centre in Dusseldorf. Hadids first built project, The Fire Station at

the production complex of the Vitra office furniture group at Weil-am-Rhein on the

German-Swiss border was a formal success but not a functional one. The fire service

moved out and the building was converted into a chair museum.

The most notorious project, though, was Hadids 1994 competition-winning design for

the Cardiff Bay Opera House, which was abandoned by the Millennium Commission after

noisy opposition from local lobbyists, particularly Cardiff politicians wary of highbrow

architecture being imposed on a Welsh city by London. Britain was still knee-deep in

the conservative political and architectural culture that had emerged in the 1970s.

Popular taste was gradually becoming more daring, but Hadids ideas were as yet a step

too far. It was a sobering experience, which set back her office for several years, but one

she learnt from. Hadid later became philosophical recently about Cardiff, seeing it as a

turning point in her career. Without dumbing down, she has slowly learnt the politics of


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how to get her work built.Slowly it worked. A skijump in Innsbruck, then a tram station in

Strasbourg. Somewhat ironically, it was

traditionally conservative Midwestern America that

gave Hadid her real break. The Rosenthal Center

for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio was a

chance to try out her ideas on a large scale and to

conceive a stunning new take on curating and

museum experience, imagined as a kit of parts,

she says, which curators can customise for each

show. The galleries are housed in horizontal oblong

tubes floating above ground level, between which

ribbon-like ramps zig and zag skywards. Its like

an extension of the city, the urban landscape.

Literally so. It is designed like an urban carpet,one end of which lies across the sidewalk at the

busiest intersection in Cincinnati to yank in

unsuspecting passers-by. Inside, the carpet rolls

through the entrance, up the back wall, marked

with light bands directing you like airport landing

strips to the walkways, up which you can clamber like a child on a climbing frame,

bouncing from artwork to artwork, shoved about by an architect who piles space high

into a tower of tightly controlled vignettes, throwing your eye from the most intimate of

spaces, to trompes loeils and out of the building through carefully positioned windows.

Its about promenading, says Hadid, being able to pause, to look out, look above, look

sideways. Her impressionistic new space was realised. The New York Times described it,

without overstatement, as the most important new building in America since the Cold

War.

Cincinnati silenced all those who said Zaha Hadids architecture was impossible to

build. And the ideas developed for Cincinnati were already being refined in other large-

scale projects, such as the MAXXI Contemporary Arts Centre in Rome (due to open next

year), the BMW Central Building in Leipzig and Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg (both

projects in Germany and opened in 2005). Crucially, Cincinnati gave Hadid theconfidence to win a stream of commissions for: a ferry terminal in Salerno, Italy; a high-

speed train station in Naples; a public archive, library and sport centre in Montpellier;

Opera Houses in Dubai and Guangzhou, a performing arts centre in Abu Dhabi, private

residences in Moscow and the USA as well as major master-planning projects in Bilbao,

Istanbul and the Middle East. Even in conservative Britain, her adopted home, Hadid has

recently completed Maggies Centre, a cancer care centre in Kirkaldy in Scotland. This


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modest project marks the beginning of a plethora of UK based work including a transport

museum in Glasgow, a gallery for the Architecture Foundation in London, a mixed-use

development in Hoxton Square and the London 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre.

Undoubtedly, Hadid has cemented her reputation as one of the worlds most exciting and

significant contemporary architects. By transcending the realm of paper architecture to

the built form, Hadid is certain to complete many memorable projects in the future.

PROJECTS

Zaha has played a pivotal role in a

great many Zaha Hadid Architects

projects over the past 30 years. The

MAXXI: National Museum of 21st

Century Arts in Rome, Italy; the BMW

Central Building (2005) in Leipzig,

Germany and the Phaeno Science

Center (2005) in Wolfsburg, Germany

are excellent demonstrations ofHadids quest for complex, fluid space. Previous seminal buildings such as the Rosenthal

Center for Contemporary Art (2003)in Cincinnati, Ohio USA , have also been hailed as

architecture that transforms our vision of the future with new spatial concepts and bold,

visionary forms.

Other works include

Hoenheim-North Terminus& Car Park (2001),

Hoenheim, France

Bergisel Ski Jump (2002),

Innsbruck, Austria

Ordrupgaard annexe

(2005), Copenhagen,

GLASGOW RIVERSIDE MUSEUM OF

TRANSPORT

Guangzhou Opera House (2010), China


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Denmark

Maggie's Centres at the Victoria Hospital (2006), Kirkcaldy, Scotland

Tondonia Winery Pavilion (20012006),[9] Haro, Spain

Eleftheria Square redesign (2007), Nicosia, Cyprus

Hungerburgbahn new stations (2007), Innsbruck, Austria

Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion (Worldwide) Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, London,

Paris, Moscow, (20062008)

Bridge Pavilion (2008), Zaragoza, Spain

J. S. Bach Pavilion, Manchester International Festival (2009), Manchester, UK

CMA CGM Tower (2010), Marseille, France

Pierres Vives (20022012), Montpellier, France

Guangzhou Opera House (2010), Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.

Wangjing Soho


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Current work

Currently Hadid is working on a multitude of projects worldwide including: the London

Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games; High-Speed Train Stations in Naples and

Durango; the CMA CGMHeadquarters tower in

Marseille; the Fiera di Milano

masterplan and tower as well

as major master-planning

projects in Beijing, Bilbao,

Istanbul and Singapore. In the

musee-d-art-contemporain-cagliari


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Middle East, Hadids portfolio includes national cultural and research centres in Jordan,

Morocco, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, as well as the new Central

Bank of Iraq.

CAIRO EXPO CITY, EGYPT


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Heydar Aliyev,Cultural Centre

y Baku, Azerbaijan

2007 TBC

y The Republic of

Azerbaijan

y Under Construction

y 101,801m2

y Building: 52,417m

y Site: 111,292m

currentlyunder construction,

'heydar aliyev cultural centre'by internationally renowned

architect zaha hadid is a new

facility consisting of a

museum, library and

conference centre in baku,

the republic of azerbaijan

situated on a site

measuring over 111,000

m2.

The cultural centre is

characterized by its fluid

form which emerges out

of the surrounding

landscape. This rippling,

manifest as earth

mounds, fades as it

moves away from the

main building to radiatelike waves.The buildingitself is also merges into the landscape to become the Cultural Plaza. A distinct sense ofmotion is established by a series of curves that fold out from the ground, creating organic

shape openings within the skin. The skin of the building a single curving surface rises,

undulates, and wraps inward at its base to completely envelop the buildings various

volumes. The curved surface allows a freedom of form that can simultaneously


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differentiate and

unite the Heydar

Aliyev Cultural

Centre's three

distinct

programmatic

elements. Its inward

curl is formed into

stairways and ramps

that connect the

lower floors to

mezzanine levels;

other circulation

paths also emanate

from the curves of the building envelope. An elevated bridge connects the library to theconference hall.

Itprovides a major new venue, landmark and source of regeneration for the city of

Baku admitting visitors to a library, museum and conference centre through folds in its

continuous outer skin, the interior spaces flooded with natural light via a glass faade.

DEDUCTIONS

The cultural centre is characterized by its fluid form which emerges out of thesurrounding landscape. The building itself is also merges into the landscape to become

the Cultural Plaza. Thus making it an excellent example of fluid land-form fractals.


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London Aquatics Centre


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y London, United

Kingdom

y 2005 2011

y Olympic DeliveryAuthority

y Built

y 36,875m2

y Olympic:

y Basement: 3,725m

y

y Ground Floor:

15,402m

y First Floor: 16387m

y Seating Area: 7352m

(17500 capacity)

y Footprint Area:

21,897m

y Legacy:

Among the impressive

projects created for the 2012

Olympic Games in London is

the recently opened Olympic

Aquatics Centre designed by the world renowned Zaha Hadid Architects.The

architecturalconcept of the London Aquatic Centre is inspired by the fluid geometries of

water in motion, creating spaces and a surrounding environment in sympathy with the

river landscape of the Olympic Park. An undulating roof sweeps up from the ground as a

wave, enclosing the pools of the Centre with its unifying gesture of fluidity, while also

describing the volume of the swimming and diving pools.

The Aquatics Centre is designed with an inherent flexibility to accommodate 17,500

spectators for the London 2012 Games in Olympic mode while also providing the

optimum spectator capacity of 2000 for use in Legacy mode after the Games.


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TheLondon AquaticCentre issituated withinthe Olympic

ParkMasterplan. Thesite ispositioned onthe southeastern edge ofthe Olympic Park with direct proximities to Stratford. The new pedestrian access fromthe east-west bridge called the Stratford City Bridge which links the Stratford Citydevelopment with the Olympic Park will cross over the LAC. This will provide a veryvisible frontage for the LAC along the bridge. Several smaller pedestrian bridges willconnect the site to the Olympic Park over the existing canal. The Aquatic Centre

addresses within its design the main public realm spaces implicit within the Olympic Parkand Stratford City planning. These are primarily the east-west connection of theStratford City Bridge and continuation of the Olympic Park space alongside the canal.

The Aquatic Centre is planned on an orthogonal axis perpendicular to the StratfordCity Bridge. Along this axis are laid out the three pools. The training pool is locatedunder the bridge whilst the competition and diving pools are within a large volumetricpool hall. The overall strategy is to frame the base of the pool hall as a podium bysurrounding it and connecting it into the bridge. This podium element allows for thecontainment of a variety of differentiated and cellular programmatic elements into asingle architectural volume which is seen to be completely assimilated with the bridge

and the landscape. From the bridge level the podium emerges from underneath thebridge to cascadesaround the poolhall to the lowerlevel of the canalside level.

The pool hallis expressed abovethe podium levelby a large roof

which is archingalong the sameaxis as the pools.Its form isgenerated by thesightlines for thespectators duringthe Olympic mode. Double-curvature geometry has been used to create a structure of


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parabolic arches thatcreate the uniquecharacteristics of the roof.The roof undulates todifferentiate an internal

visual separation inside thepool hall between thecompetition pool volumeand the diving poolvolume. The roof projectsbeyond the base legacypool hall envelope toextend the roof covering to the external areas of the cascades and the bridge entrance.The roof projection over the bridge entrance announces the London Aquatic Centrespresence from the approach from either Stratford City or the Olympic Park. Structurallythe roof is grounded at 3 primary positions. Otherwise the opening between the roof and

the podium is in-filled with a glass facade.

DEDUCTIONS

The architecturalconcept of the London Aquatic Centre is inspired by the fluid

geometries or fluid fractals of water in motion. Fluid fractals is the backbone of design,

giving the building its organic architectural qualities. It does not take shape of any

normal geometry of circles, squares e.t.c. Thus losing geometries conventionary four

cardinal views of front, left side, right side, back elevation. Fluid fractal gives the

building its, inherent flexibility.


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Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container

y Hong Kong, Tokyo, New

York, currently Paris

y 2008 2010y Chanel

y Built

y 700m2

y 29m x 45m

y 74t of Steel

Chanel Contemporary Art

Container, a travelling art space

designed by Zaha Hadid Architects,

has opened in its first destination,

Hong Kong.The pavilion,

commissioned by Chanel head

designer Karl Lagerfeld, hosts an

exhibition of artworks inspired by

Chanel bags by 20 artists and

calledMobile Art. Hadids


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architecture transforms our vision

of the future with new spatial

concepts and bold, visionary

forms.I think through our

architecture, we can give people

a glimpse of another world, and

enthuse them, make them

excited about ideas. Our

architecture is intuitive, radical,

international and dynamic. We

are concerned with constructing

buildings that evoke original

experiences, a kind of strangeness

and newness that is comparable

to the experience of going to anew country. The Mobile Art

Pavilion for Chanel follows these

principles of inspiration, states

Zaha Hadid.The Mobile Art

Pavilion for Chanel is the very

latest evolution of Hadids architectural language that generates a sculptural sensuality

with a coherent formal logic.This new architecture flourishes via the new digital

modelling tools that augment the design process with techniques of continuous fluidity.

Zaha Hadid explains this process, The complexity and technological advances in digital

imaging software and construction techniques have made the architecture of the Mobile

Art Pavilion possible. It is an architectural language of fluidity and nature, driven by new

digital design and manufacturing processes which have enabled us to create the

Pavilions totally organic forms instead of the serial order of repetition that marks the

architecture of the industrial 20th century.

A unique sculptural pavilion created as an exhibition/event space for Chanel

inspired by the brands distinctive layering of exquisite details within an elegant,

cohesive whole created as a series of continuous arches, sequencing towards a central

courtyard the entire structure flooded by through translucent walls and ceilings. The

Mobile Art Pavilions organic form has evolved from the spiralling shapes found in nature.

This system of organisation and growth is among the most frequent in nature and offers

an appropriate expansion towards its circumference, giving the Pavilion generous public

areas at its entrance with a 128m2 terrace.

The Pavilion follows the parametric distortion of a torus. In its purest geometric

shape, the circular torus is the most fundamental diagram of an exhibition space. The


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distortion evident in the Pavilion creates a constant variety of exhibition spaces around

its circumference, whilst at its centre, a large 65m2 courtyard with natural lighting

provides an area for visitors to meet and reflect on the exhibition. This arrangement also

allows visitors to see each other moving through the space and interacting with the

exhibition. In this way, the architecture facilitates the viewing of art as a collective

experience. The central courtyard will also host evening events during the exhibition in

each host city. The organic shell of the Mobile Art Pavilion is created with a succession of

reducing arched segments. As the Pavilion will travel over three continents, this

segmentation also gives an appropriate system of partitioning allowing the Pavilion to

be easily transported in separate, manageable elements. Each structural element will be

no wider than 2.25 m. The partitioning seams become a strong formal feature of the

exterior faade cladding, whilst these seams also create a spatial rhythm of perspective

views within the interior exhibition spaces.

MOBILE ART PAVILION FOR CHANEL

(ZAHA HADID speaks)

The Mobile Art Pavilion for Chanel, initially inspired by Chanels signature quiltedbag and conceived through a system of natural organisation, is also shaped by the

functional considerations of theexhibition. However, these furtherdeterminations remain secondaryand precariously dependent on theoverriding formal language of thePavilion. An enigmatic strangenesshas evolved between thePavilions organic system of logicand these functional adaptations arousing the visitors curiosityeven further.

In creating the Mobile ArtPavilion for Chanel, Zaha Hadidhas developed the fluidgeometries of natural systems intoa continuum of fluent and dynamicspace where oppositionsbetween exterior and interior,


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light and dark, natural and artificial landscapes are synthesised. Lines of energy convergewithin the Pavilion, constantly redefining the quality of each exhibition space whilstguiding movement through the exhibition. The work of selected artists has beencommissioned for the exhibition. Hadid created an entire landscape for their work,rather than just an exhibition space. Visitors will be guided through the space using the

latest digital technology developed in collaboration with the artists.

The fascination of the Mobile Art Pavilion is the challenge of translating theintellectual and physical into the sensual experimenting with completely unexpectedand totally immersive environments for this global celebration of the iconic work ofChanel. I see the Pavilion as a kind of a total artwork that continually reinvents itself asit moves from Asia, to the USA and Europe, states Zaha Hadid.


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Deductions

Chanel Contemporary Art Container, is an excellent example of fractal geometry, itssignature is written all over it. Carefully analyzing this building, Zaha Hadid skillfullyapplied fractal geometry in its design concept. The following characteristics of fractalscan be recognized,

1 self similarities

Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container, was created by a series of self similar

but continuous arches, sequencing towards a central courtyard. The Mobile Art Pavilions

organic form which evolved from the spiraling shapes found in nature. The circular arches

are Self-similar but at different scales. The basic element of a circular spiral shape is

repeated throughout the building. The Pavilion follows the parametric distortion of a

torus. In its purest geometric shape, the circular torus is the most fundamental diagram

of an exhibition space.Any structure is self-similar if it has under-gone a transformationin which the proportions of the structure have all been modified by the same scaling

factor.

Golden spiral

The Mobile Art Contemporary Art Container practically took the shape of a nautilus shell

which occurs in nature. Thus displaying another important characteristics of fractals, the

Gold Rule which produces the Gold Spiral, this characteristic is what brings organic

architecture into this design.


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