Queen of the Curve
or why I love Zaha Hadid so much
I don’t think that architecture is only about shelter, is only about a very simple enclosure. It should be able to excite you, to calm you, to make you think.
~ Zaha Hadid
It was the end of a gorgeous day in Innsbruck, and Tanu and I were tired, our legs protesting, our senses too full to take in any more beauty. We were loitering in the city center, deciding on what to do for dinner, till -
we saw a vision.
It was an impossibly beautiful….something….right there on the side of a busy thoroughfare. It was curves and grace, lines which floated, a structure which seemed to want to fly.
We enquired what it was. Turned out it was the Congress station of a funicular system climbing up the slopes, to the village of Hungerburgbahn. The funicular operation had four stations and what we found was that the design of the stations were an aesthetic nod to the frozen landscapes around. We took the funicular - and it turned out to be ethereal, as it felt like floating above streams and icicles and slivers of ice. And as the train stopped at each station, we realized how the design for each station was done to caress the variegated terrain and slope we passed through. And the one on the top was a snow-white translucent glass roof that had the shape of a bird's wings - this majestic building made you feel like flying.
We asked who’d designed it. And for the first time in our lives, we heard of Zaha Hadid.
The name itself had so much romance and intrigue in it, that it compelled us to look her up as soon as we returned to our hotel. And lo and behold, we discovered another structure in Innsbruck, designed by her.
The heart-stopping Bergisel ski-jump stadium!
Perched like a bird’s nest over an elegantly designed neck, surrounded with rugged ice-crusted mountains, this was a beauty to savour. The structure was awarded the Austrian State Architecture Prize in 2002 and is a unique sight on the Innsbruck landscape. The view from the top of course takes one’s breath away, as does the delectable victuals in the Bergisel Panorama-Restaurant. We enjoyed a meal while surveying the beautiful city centre below and the Nordketten Mountain on the opposite side of the valley.
The most important thing is motion, the flux of things, a non-Euclidean geometry in which nothing repeats itself: a new order of space.
~ Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq at a time when the city was seen as progressive and cosmopolitan. Her father, too, possessed that spirit as a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat. Her parents’ successes allowed the family to provide Zaha with a first-rate education and to travel throughout the world. “When I was a child I traveled every summer with my parents, and my father made sure I went to every important building and museum in each city we visited. We’d go to new cities to learn about architecture,” she said. “I think that’s what inspired my love of buildings.”
Hadid moved to London in 1972 to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. It was here that she designed “Malevich’s Tektonik,” a hotel design based on the paintings of Russian Suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich, whose works strived to tap into an unseen dimension of feeling through arcane geometric forms.
Alas, by 2001, she had completed just one built work, the Vitra Fire Station.
Her radical forms took on the visual appearance of defying gravity, leading many clients and contractors to believe they simply couldn’t be built. But a good woman with fire in her imagination can never remain quiet.
Following the completion of the Bergisel Ski Jump, in Innsbruck, Austria, and the Richard and Lois Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hadid was awarded the Pritzker Prize (the Nobel Prize of Architechture), the first to be given to a woman. This was a turning point in her career, as the increased attention she received led to more clients, higher budgets, and more completed works.
As far as I went, the next encounter I had with a Zaha marvel was when I’d visited Abu Dhabi.
As it is, I was reeling under the incredible experience of staying in Emirates Hotel, with their 24 carat gold-flecked coffee and their beyond sumptuously-beautiful grounds. And then I went to see the Abu Dhabi Louvre, with its distinctive netted roof and dimpled shadows.
But the pièce de résistance, as always, turned out to be a Zaha creation. Across the Maqta Channel, we saw - and then drove over - Abu Zayed bridge.
It was as if the sand dunes had found their congruity in a river crossing, the same undulations, the same soft curves and rounded edges. The bridge was more an extension of its environs, then the city of Abu Dhabi itself.
Zaha had designed the bridge to reflect its distinct geography, imbuing it at the same time with a modern grace which stood out like no bridge in the world ever would. A bridge, as we’ve seen time after time, serves its purpose across rivers and lands of many countries, but none ever brought the aesthetics so strongly beyond its utilitarian finesse. The bridge was as much art as it was utility. We stopped the car on the banks on the side of the highway skirting it at a distance, and in deep silence, saw - nay, meditated - on its stunning grandeur and concinnity.
But the riches didn’t end there.
As if that was not enough, I travelled to Dubai on the way back to India, and what do I see but 'The Opus'.
The Opus in Business Bay is an architectural marvel. This unique project hosts both hotels and residences. The interiors are futuristically Hadid, and look much like a perfect set for the next Star Trek movie! The most distinctive feature of the building is its impressive void, a carved-out cube that seems to float within the structure. And what a visually stunning effect it has.
And as if that was not enough creativity, even the furniture inside the building is designed by Zaha!
One of the most fulfilling things I have done - time and again - is to see Zaha’s work on the internet and hear her interviews on YouTube. She was a visionary, and bold beyond words. She designed in ways which seemed impossible to conceive, leave aside execute.
But we are lucky that she never gave up her chutzpah, and in that daring we have some of the great pieces of art we can ever see executed as buildings. 1
For your delectation, I have chosen some videos - of her work, and of her. Enjoy!
Did you enjoy this newsletter on Zaha Hadid? See this essay on the young dynamic architect Abin, who breathes life in everything he designs -
All images in this post are from the net. They have been used to exemplify the narrative. There is no commercial consideration whatsoever.
What a fantastic article! I heard Zaha Hadid interviewed once, but had never seen any of her buildings. Your descriptions of each one are so beautiful and so compelling - you write like an architect of words.