Zaha Hadid: Ideologies, Principles, Values

5/21/2018 Zaha Hadid: Ideologies, Principles, Values

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"Gravity-defying",

"fragmentary" and

"revolutionary" are a few

of the words used todescribe Zaha Hadid's

architectural designs. The

Iraqi-born, London-based

architect has stirred up

continual controversy with

her designs that defy a

label in the Modern vs.

Post-Modern architectural

debate. In the past 15

years, she has gone from

unknown student to

"architecture's new diva"

as the title of the January1996 Architectural

DigestUs profile

suggested. Her work has

been accepted as a

significant contribution to

architecture and her style

is one that other

architects now emulate.

These characteristics

might serve to qualify her

under Howard Gardner's

definition of creativity.

"The creative individual is

a person who regularly

solves problems, fashions

products, or defines new

questions in a domain in a

way that is initially

considered novel but that

ultimately becomes

accepted in a particular

cultural setting." (Gardner

1993)

Zaha Hadid has been a persistent radical in the field of architectural

experimentation for the last 20 years. The importance of her contribution to

the culture of architecture lies primarily in a series of momentous

expansions - as influential as radical - in the repertoire of spatial articulation

available to architects today. These conquests for the design resources of

the discipline include representational devices, graphic manipulations,

compositional manoeuvres, spatial concepts, typological inventions and

(beyond the supposed remit of the discipline proper) the suggestion of new

modes or patterns of inhabitation. This list of contributions describes a

causal chain that significantly moves from the superficial to the substantial

and thus reverses the order of ends vs. means assumed in normative

models of rationality. The project starts as a shot into the dark, spreading its

trajectories, and assuming its target in midcourse. The point of departure is

the assumption of a new medium (multi perspective projection) which

allows for certain graphic operations (multiple, over-determining distortions)

which then are made operative as compositional transformations

(fragmentation and deformation) leading to a new concept of space

(magnetic field space, particle space, distorted space) which suggests a

new phenomenology, navigation and inhabitation of space no longer

oriented along prominent figures, axis, edges and clearly bounded realms.

Instead the distribution of densities, directional bias, scalar grains and

gradient vectors of transformation constitute the new ontology defining what

it means to be somewhere


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Architecture was the re-presentation of a fixed set of minutely determined typologies and complete tectonic syste

Against this backdrop abstraction meant the possibility and challenge of free creation. The canvas became the field of

original construction. The introduction of categories such as "manifesto", "the discipline of architecture " and "oeuv

suspends but does not cancel or deny concerns of utility. These categories are not set absolute, autonomous and fore

aloof from the functional concerns of society. Rather the concrete uses and users are bracketed for the sake

experimenting with new, potentially general sable principles of spatial organization and articulation with respec

emerging social demands and use patterns. Functional optimality according to well corroborated criteria is t

renunciated for the experimental advancement of social practices of potentially higher functionality. The very nature of

kind of iconoclastic research of "the avant garde" is that it thrusts itself into the unknown and offers its challengproposals to the collective process of experimentation in a raw state rather than waiting until the full cycle

experimentation, variation, selection, optimization and refinement is complete and ready to present secure and polis

results.

Despite the often precarious status of its partial and preliminary results I will argue that this radicalism constitutes a fo

of research; an unorthodox research in as much as it's methods include intuitive groping, randomization and autom

formal processes, i.e. the temporary relaxation and even suspension of rational criteria.

RESOURCES OF THE RADICAL IMAGINATION

Creative Revivalism

It is no accident hat the New in the arts always announces itself in the guise of a revival. Hadid's career starts with

reinterpretation of Malevitch's tectonics. Her early work has indeed been (mis-)understood as Neo-constructivism. Aone might recount how Peter Eisenman takes off from the early Le Corbusier. Revivalist appropriation is the easiest

most immediate option to articulate dissatisfaction and resistance towards a dominant practise. But this has nothing to

with repetition. For instance, to pick up the unfinished project of modernism on the back of post-modernism can not b

simple re-enactment, even if one initially works with literal citations. For a culture which reflects its own history, this his

can never be circular. Although there have been attempts to write a circular, discursively the second time can never

the same. Also: what usually follows on from the second time clearly reveals its irreducible newness. Revivalism -

hurling back in front of what was left behind - has been a pervasive and effective mechanism in the production of the N

The re-introduction of formal systems leads inevitably to over-determination, distortion and transformat

Re- combination: Collage and Hybridisation

The second mechanism that has to be mentioned here is the dialectic of re-combination and hybridisation. The impor

reminder here is that the result of combination is rarely just a predictable compromise. Synenergies might be harnessUnpredictable operational effects might emerge and, on the side of meaning, affects are engendered as the wh

taxonomy of differences is forced into an unpredictable realignment. The new combination re-contextualises a

reinterprets its ingredients as well as its surroundings.

Abstraction

Abstraction implies the avoidance of familiar, ready-made typologies. Instead of taking for granted things like hous

rooms, windows, roofs etc. Hadid reconstitutes the functions of territorialisation, enclosure and interfacing etc. by me

of boundaries, fields, planes, volumes, cuts, ribbons etc. The creative freedom of this approach is due to the op

endedness of the compositional configurations as well as the open-endedness of the list of abstract entities that enter

the composition. (To maintain the spirit of abstraction in the final building a defamiliarising, "minimalist" detailing

avoiding that cuts turn into windows again.)

AnalogiesAnalogies are fantastic engines of invention with respect to organisational diagrammes, formal languages and tecto

systems. They have nothing to do with allegory or semantics in general. Hadid's preferred source realm of analog

transference is the inexhaustible realm of landscape formations: forests, canyons, river deltas, dunes, glaciers/morain

faulted geological strata, lava flows etc. Beyond such specific formations abstract formal characteristics of landscape

general are brought into the ambit of architectural articulation. The notion of an artificial landscape has been a pervas

working hypothesis within Hadid's oeuvre from the Hong Kong Peak onwards. Artificial landscapes are coherent spa

systems. They reject platonic exactitude but they are not just any "freeform". They have their peculiar lawfulness. T

operate via gradients rather than hard edge delineation. They proliferate infinite variations rather than operating via

repetition of discrete types. They are indeterminate and leave room for active interpretation on the part of the inhabitan

Another source realm is food stuffs: sandwiches, melted cheese, chewing gum, papadams, spaghetti. Ultimately anyth

could serve as analogical inspiration. Often such analogies become to be considered as the concept of the project: T


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Cardiff Opera House as an inverted necklace, the Copenhagen Concert Hall as a block of terrazzo, the Victoria and Al

Museum extension as 3D TV, i.e. a three-dimensional pixelation etc.

Surrealist mechanisms

One of the most significant and momentous features of architectural avant-garde of the last 15 years is the prol iferatio

representational media and design processes and the attendant theoretical reflection on those media and process

Hadid's audacious move to translate the dynamism and fluidity of her calligraphic hand directly into equally fluid tecto

systems, her incredible move from isometric and perspective projection to literal distortions of space, from the explod

axonometry to the literal explosion of space into fragments, from the superimposition of various fisheye perspectivethe literal bending and melt down of space etc. - all these moves must initially appear rampantly illogical, akin to

operations of the surrealists. But then these strange moves - once taken seriously within the context of developing

architectural project - turn out to be powerful compositional options when faced with the task of articulating comp

programmes. The dynamic streams of movements within a complex structure can now be made legible as the most f

regions within the structure; overall trapezoidal distortions offer one more way to respond to non-orthogonal si

perspective distortions allow the orientation of elements to various functional focal points etc. What once was

outrageous violation of logic has become part of a strategically deployed repertoire of nuanced spatial organisation a

articulation.

The initially "mindless" sketching of graphic textures in endless iterations operates like an "abstract machine" prolifera

difference to select from. Once a strange texture or figure is selected and confronted with a programmatic agend

peculiar form-content dialectic is engendered. An active figure-reading mind will find the desired conditions but equ

new desires and functions are inspired by the encounter with the strange configuration. The radically irrational aarbitrary detour ends up hitting a target. This "miracle" can be explained by recognizing that all functionality is relative,

all well articulated organisms have once been monstrous aberrations and still are such - relative to other "higher" a

more "beautiful" organisations.

Harnessing the power of chance

More and more it seems to become an urgency to incorporate the category of random accidents and chance mutatio

into our theories of innovation and progress, even though these terms - randomness and progress - have hitherto be

absolutely anti-thetical. Randomness seems to be the absolute antithesis of any notion of strategic conduct or rational

Form-generating aleatoric processes involve the radical suspension of everything usually associated with "design"

deliberate purpose-lead activity, directed to solve well-defined problems according to known and explicit criteria. In

aleatoric design method the formal process is running ahead and a meaning and programme is read into it a posterallowing for an innovative (re-)alignment of both new form and new function. The aleatoric "play" is an instrumen

intelligence, not its negation or substitute. As in biological evolution, the necessary condition for the ability to harn

chance for the purposes of innovation is reproduction, i.e. the ability to reproduce an initially unintended and uncontro

effect. The machinic process becomes domesticated and human. What was play has become method.

"Playfulness is the deliberate, temporary relaxation of rules in order to explore the possibilities of alternative rules. W

we are playful we challenge the necessity of consistency. In effect, we announce - in advance - our rejection of us

objections to behaviour that does not fit the standard model of intelligence. Playfulness allows experimentation. At

same time, it acknowledges reason. It accepts that at one point ... it will be integrated into the structure of intelligence

tolerant of the idea that he will discover the meaning of yesterday's action in the experiences and interpretations

today."(4) Such reasoning might grant us some breathing space for experimentation not only on the drawing board,

also - within certain limits - with the building itself. Who is to judge and deny a priori that a strange building will not attr

and engender a strangely productive occupation.


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INFLUENCES(People and Style

After receiving her Dip

Prize in 1977 from the Archite

Association, Hadid went to wor

one of her tutors, Rem Koolhau

OMA, Office of Modern Archite

This relationship soon becam

restrictive for Hadid, although

and Koolhaus remained

friends. Hadid remarked:

"My relation with OM

more fundamental than workingthem. There is almost a kind of

visible dialogue between us...

supported me a lot when I wa

question about that."

Koolhaus served as a m

and friend to Hadid during the ti

her first breakthrough. As her fo

tutor at the Architectural Associ

he could understand her work

the ideas that she was tryin

convey. She obviously respect

opinion and values his friendship


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CHILD-LIKE MIND

I propose that the

pedagogy at the

Architectural

Association provided

the freedom for Zaha

Hadid to explore

issues that reflect achild-like mind. A main

theme of Hadid's

designs exhibits that a

building can float and

defy gravity. This

attitude is reminiscent

of a child's drawings

before someone

forces the concept of

gravity upon them.

The idea of defying

gravity does not come

from flying in the air,but from being freed

from confining laws

and conventions and

making a new kind of

space; consequently,

answering a child's

question in an adult

manner.

Hadid also fits into the

child-like character of

geniuses in other

ways some critics say.

She has a tendency to

portray a haughty

attitude toward clients

and the general public

and her new style of

painting (which I

discuss under

Domain) fails to help

viewers interpret her

ideas. (Vine 1995)


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MARGINALITY

Another issue that separated Zaha Hadid from even other AA students

was her non-Western European background. Hadid comments,

"I think being a foreigner in London in the seventies was also a very

interesting period because it was after the sixty-eight revolution, people

were much more liberal. They did not equate ideas to making money. This

notion of displacement, being displaced is a very liberated experience.More and more because I was a woman, non-British and it kind of

confused the people there. The more became confused about me the

more they left me alone." (Hadid 1995)

The rejection of Hadid's design

brings up an interesting aspect o

Gardner's definition of creativity

which specified that it must be w

a specific culture. Who defines i

culture accepts an idea and wha

defines the limits of a culture?

Would the British culture whichdiffers from the more accepting

German culture define the

architectural profession's opinio

Hadid's work? In Japan, they ar

also more enthusiastic about

Hadid's designs. Mario Botta

commented, "she joins the trend

spectacular hypertechnological

architecture which represents th

common denominator of the late

events on this Asian archipelago

Hadid's marginality leads to a

characteristic that distinguishes

from others. Hadid proposes,

"Because I am a non-European

have a different system of thinki

my order is different.

Deconstructionism and the

structuralist theories are based

theories which were so-called

rationalist, one way of doing thin

don't belong to that tradition. I

belong to a tradition which alrea

has a different order. They are

called more emotional, intuitive,intuitive is not instinctive. Intuitiv

the marriage of rationalism and

experience."

Zaha Hadid: Ideologies, Principles, Values

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