Zaha M. Hadid was transformed from an unknown architect into an international presence when she won the prestigious competition for the Hong Kong Peak Club in 1983. In addition, this victory helped establish deconstruction as a viable style of architecture. Although the project was canceled for financial reasons, Hadid used the momentum generated by her unexpected triumph to build a strong reputation and remain in the international arena. This was quite a feat for the Iraqi architect, as her first building, the Vitra Fire Station (Weil-am-Rhein, Germany), was not completed until 1993. The power and quality of the deconstructive designs produced throughout her career are impressive, and they have brought her international renown. Hadid's success was demonstrated early when she was awarded the Architectural Association (AA) in London Diploma Prize in 1977. Her deconstructivist designs, composed of dynamic forms and presented in elaborate renderings, are critically acclaimed and influential. For example, her paintings of the Peak Club project have become icons for architectural students. However, by 1999, after more than 20 years of professional practice, Hadid had entered numerous competitions, completed many projects, designed some furniture and a few decorative objects, and realized fewer than ten buildings.
Quality, not quantity, is the foundation of Hadid's reputation. Her fourth-year student project, Malevich's Tektonik (1976-77), and her fifth-year student design thesis, "Museums of the Nineteenth Century" (1977-78), are composed of the regular geometric forms of modernism that are arranged like Suprematist and Constructivist compositions. Although Hadid has maintained this method of composition, in her deconstructivist designs, she combines orthogonal forms with curves, rhomboids, and parallelograms. This was a slow change that was evidenced first in her Dutch Parliament Extension (1978-79) for Rem Koolhaas's Office of Metropolitan Architecture and firmly established in her project for 59 Eaton Place (1981-82); it has since become her signature style.
Hadid produces innovative, aesthetic, and functional buildings, whether they remain on paper (Al Wahda Sports Center, 1988, Abu Dhabi) or are constructed (IBA Housing, 1986-93, Berlin). She has won important international competitions, such as those for the Cardiff Bay Opera House (1994-96) in Cardiff and the Contemporary Arts Center (1998-) in Cincinnati.
The Contemporary Arts Center is Hadid's first building in the United States, and it serves as an excellent example of architectural design at the end of the 20th century. On the other hand, Hadid's design for the Cardiff Bay Opera House will not be realized, and it stands for much that is wrong with the state of the profession. Despite having won two separate competitions for the Opera House commission, one open and one invitational, the project has been taken away from Hadid. Although perhaps disputed, the official explanation is that her design was unfavorably received. Hadid believes that the general public and the Opera House Trust officials, who were laypersons and not architects, reacted negatively to her design because they could not read her drawings. In her presentation drawings, Hadid depicts a structure at different angles and in different stages instead of the traditional method of giving a single view, such as an elevation. It is true that they can be difficult to read, but challenging drawings do not automatically represent bad buildings, as Hadid's designs for the Opera House and the Contemporary Arts Center illustrate.
Throughout her career, Hadid has produced high-caliber, innovative work. At the beginning of her career, she helped establish deconstruction as a credible style of architecture. Unlike many other deconstructivist architects, such as Daniel Libeskind and Peter Eisenman, Hadid is interested in an architecture that is primarily formal rather than theoretical. At the dawn of the 21st century, Hadid embodies which facets of the profession should be left in the past and which facets offer potential in the future.
Loretra Lorance
Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.2 (G-O). Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005. |
