Zaha Hadid

Synopsis

Zaha Hadid (1950 – 2016) was an Iraqi and British architect, representative of deconstructivism, bio-tech, leader of hypersurface design, winner of the Pritzker Prize (2004). Hadid was one of the renowned architects who contributed to the concept of architectural form and space from a new, innovative and futuristic perspective. She tended to introduce some features of Suprematism into other models, such as disregarding gravity and manipulating the earth on different floors, and smoothness and fluidity. Hadid saw architecture as an art that could be effectively used to meet the needs of its users. Her design style is the result of a comprehensive review of all design parameters with regard to aspects of rationality. It is a continuous and interactive exploration of form, function, society, culture and novelty.

Hadid’s ideas are close to the ideas of Kazimir Malevich, his architectons, and El Lissitzky.

Features of the author’s style of Zaha Hadid:

1. Big extreme in shaping. A constant collision of similar impossibilities. Curvature-deformations and dissonances. The beauty of simple geometries, shifts and overhangs, the contrast of scales and the placement of the large and the whole over the small, the importance of the dynamics of perception as you walk.
2. Anti-gravity idea in architecture. The use of technology not for decoration, but for creating the invisibility of the engineering component, a different approach to the design of the building structure.
3. Using the ideas of “landform”.Projects adjacent to the landscape: it is important how the necessary elements are placed in this landscape, what will be the topography of the project and what will be the angle of incidence of light. The latest projects and implementations of the architect resemble the surfaces of geotectonics, artificial overlandscapes (for example, the project of a complex of water stadiums in London).
4. Hypersurface architecture – created by digitally designing the curved surface of a multidimensional space. Removing the opposition of the real and the virtual as two different worlds.
5. Zaha Hadid’s projects are like unknown mysterious territories that await discovery and exploration.
6. Light and shadow constantly alternate, illuminating the accents of the exposition and the main directions of movement, the intensely lit entrance areas.
7. Volumes, shapes, perspectives, light guides and spaces floating in the air far from Euclidean geometry. Here the new is articulated.
8. The combination of different types of materials – smooth and roughlytextured, porous and specially processed – supports the idea of mystery and
9. The main structural material is reinforced concrete, which easily creates the impression of the fluidity of architectural forms.

Main structures:

• Fire department of the manufacturer of designer furniture “Vitra”, Weil am Rhein, Germany (1994);
• Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA (1998);
• Garden Pavilion at Vejle (1999);
• Marine Terminal for Scheduled Flights, Solerno, Italy (1999);
• Hoenheim-North train station and car park, Strasbourg, France (2001);
• Great Mosque (Strasbourg, 2000);
• Springboard Bergisel, Innsbruck, Austria (2002);
• Ordrupgaard Art Museum: new wing, Copenhagen, Denmark (2005);
• Cable car stations, Innsbruck, Austria (2005);
• Science Center “Phæno”, Wolfsburg, Germany (2005);
• Central building of the BMW plant, Leipzig, Germany (2005);
• Hotel Puerta America, Madrid, Spain (2006);
• Funicular Station, Austria (2007);
• National Museum of Art of the XXI Century, Rome, Italy (2010);
• Aquatics Center (London), England (2011);
• CMA CGM Tower, Marseille, France (2011);
• Opera House, Guangzhou, China (2011);
• Theater project in Rabat, Morocco (2010 – 2014)
• Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan (2012);
• “Innovation Tower of the Jockey Club” (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China) (2013);
• Business center “Peresvet-Plaza”, Moscow, Russia (2015);
• Antwerp Port Authority Building, Belgium, Antwerp (2016);
• King Abdullah Oil Research and Development Center, Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, (2017);
• Capital Hill Residence, private house of entrepreneur Vladislav Doronin, Barvikha, Russia (2018).

The building of the residential complex IBA in Berlin (1985)

In the work of Zaha Hadid, there was a beginning a period that will later be called deconstructivism. It is a smoothly deformed, almost regular parallelepiped. The sheer wall does not hide the gently curved slanted shell and the space delineated by the cantilever beams. These distortions and deformations create a sense of the new.

The Vitra Weil am Rhein fire station (1989-1993) on the border with Switzerland was built in 1989-1993. “The idea was to arrange the new building, modest in size, so that it would not get lost among the existing monumental volumes. It had to pick up the general rhythm, be included in the general structuring of the axis space. The station was originally designed as an external limitation and completion of the landscape zone, alley, rather as an element defining space… “. Such an active space-forming position is realized by a long narrow structure, more precisely, a set of parallel walls, which seem to go behind each other. In accordance with the functional necessity, the walls open in places, tilt and part. The relationship between form and function in a fire station is ambiguous. External forms do not correspond at all to internal spaces, that is, functions. The building of the fire station is of fundamental importance in the work of Hadid. First of all, she proved that her complex spatial plans can be realized.

Residential complex Spittellau in Vienna (2008). A complex composition of sharp-angled, oblique and dynamic volumes. The striving for novelty and uniqueness of the image dominates the functional side of the building: due to its planning imperfection, it remained unoccupied.

Cable car station in Innsbruck (2004 – 2007). When designing, the peculiarities of the behavior of ice in nature, the location and displacement of ice blocks were taken into account; as a result, Hadid designed four stations with frosted glass overlap, which in shape was an imitation of frozen water movement.

Bridge pavilion at EXPO 2008 in Zaragoza (2004 – 2008). The project consists in filling solid materials and static structures with dynamics, flowing energy inherent in liquids, because water was the main subject of the exhibition. The bridge consisted of four modules-compartments, the shape of which, generated on the basis of a diamond-shaped section, made the structure as stable as possible.

Hydropius in Haarlemmermeer (2002). The pavilion was built for the World Exhibition of Gardening Art and should symbolize the achievements of the national economy of the region. The architecture of the pavilion is metaphorical, reminiscent of a futuristic seaplane, consisting of two volumes, covered with inclined metal planes, which give the impression of an image of the wings of an airplane.