Zaha Hadid

The Peak, Hong Kong.

Zaha Hadid
About the architect.
Known as an architect who consistently pushes the
boundaries of architecture and urban design, her work
experiments with new spatial concepts intensifying
existing urban landscapes and encompassing all elds of
design, from the urban scale to interiors and furniture.
From the beginning of her career Zaha Hadid was
inuenced by the artist Kazimir Malevich, who led her to
use paint as a tool for architectonic exploration.
she created a precedent for her entire career, with
these explorations later consolidated in material form in
her works.
Hadid began her paintings with essays in a macro urban
scale, exploring proposals for masterplans and forms of
connection within and between cities. In her paintings of
"The Peak," Hadid proposed a landmark as a respite
from the congestion and intensity of Hong Kong,
developed on an articial mountain.
Air is Hadid’s element: she oats buildings that reside
aloft. At a time, in the early 1980s, when architects
were concerned about manifesting the path of gravity
through buildings, Hadid invented a new
anti-gravitational visual physics. She suspended weight in
the same way dramatists suspend disbelief.
In 1983, she won a much-published international
competition for a sports club on the Peak above
Hong Kong with a crystalline structure that seemed to
explode from the mountainside, creating in
the fragmentary fall-out a structure that evaded any
sense of a unitary whole. Eruption rather than
gravity was the dening force directing the path of a
building that thrived in the air. Floor planes were
no longer extruded up from a single foundation, stacked
atop one another, but beamed out in
different directions, shifting as they rose in a complex
section. A highway curved through the building
in the space between the splayed, airborne volumes.
Courageously she set off on a course to realize ideas,
such as fragmentation and layering, never built by the
Suprematists themselves. Inspired by Malevich’s ethereal
paintings, she took up the brush as a design tool, and for
her, painted tableaux became a locus of
spatial invention. With this methodology, applied in the
elusive pursuit of almost intangible form, she
escaped the prejudice latent in such design tools as the
T-square and parallel rule, traditionally used by
architects. Hadid came off the drawing boards, much as
Frank Gehry did when, inuenced by artists,
he left behind the usual drawings to conceive his
buildings sculpturally, often with his hands. Hadid
abandoned the regularity of the T-square and parallel
rule in buildings emancipated from the right angle.
Hadid transformed traditional drawing conventions,
sometimes grafting several techniques and viewpoints
together in the same multi-dimensional tableau. She
often layered drawings done on sheets of transparent
acrylic, creating visual narratives showing several spatial
strata simultaneously. Applying Suprematist painting
approaches to reconceive architecture, she developed
an aesthetic that seemed to challenge the
inertia of material reality, with dynamic forms subject to
visual acceleration and a sense of take-off.
Just as the entasis of a classical column connotes the
feeling of weight carried by the shaft, Hadid’s
forms were ideated: she shaped forms to cultivate a
perception of speed communicated by the eye
to the body. Concept translated to experience: the
shapes conveyed a sense of physical thrill as the
body empathized with form.from
By the 1980s, the paintings depict fractured landscapes
teeming with splintered shards and oblique planes, elds
of otsam zooming towards multiple vanishing points, as
if being sucked into a wormhole.
“Her early structures always looked considerably heavier
than she wanted,” recalls Nigel Coates, her
contemporary at the AA. For the anti-gravity artist, steel
and concrete never quite bent to her will. But the trust
gradually came, computers caught up, and by the time
of her death, Hadid had completed 56 projects in 45
cities around the world, from the BMW headquarters in
Leipzig to the Heydar Aliyev centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Zaha Hadid was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize
in 2004 and is internationally known for her built,
theoretical and academic work. The MAXXI: Italian
National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, the
London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games
and the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku are built
manifestos of Hadid's quest for complex uid space.
Dutch Parliament Extension, Netherlands.

OMA’s proposal consisted of three main elements, the

products of three different designers: Zaha Hadid, Elias
Zenghelis, and Rem Koolhaas. Hadid proposed a long,
tall, and narrow rectangular ofce block, parallel to a
lower, wider block designed by Zenghelis. The two
orthogonal elements stood in contrast to Koolhaas’
contribution, an extrusion of an irregular plan sitting atop
pilotis. Though connected by bridges, the three
structures were otherwise spatially independent of one
another.

When a competition for a new extension of the

Binnenhof was announced in 1978, there was more at
stake than the creation of new ofce space. The
competition brief called for a deeper reinterpretation of
the complex, one which would physically—and
The end result of the collaboration between Hadid,
symbolically—separate the gathering spaces of the
Zenghelis, and Koolhaas did more than simply address
Parliament from the ofce spaces of the government
the programmatic and symbolic directives laid out in the
proper.The new Parliament buildings were to stand on a
brief. The trio of late 20th century buildings, while visually
roughly triangular site just beyond the rectangle formed
quite distinct from their older neighbors, were by no
by the original medieval fortress.
means out of place. In fact, their stark modernity was
meant to respect what OMA deemed the “slow-motion
process of transformation”.
The horizontal slab - a podium made of glass brick -
contains the entire conference center. It is conceived as
a covered podium for political activity, directly
accessible to the general public from the adjoining
plaza. The vertical slab contains accommodations for
professional politicians. An ambulatory runs horizontally
through the assembly, towards the 'smoke-lled room'.
Above the ambulatory are three oors where the
thirteen political parties prepare their positions; from
there they then lter down to the ambulatory and the
assembly. Below the ambulatory are three oors for the
managers of the parliamentary procedures.
The 340 rooms for the members of parliament and their
assistants are accommodated in the existing structures
along the Binnenhof; three of the ve courtyards have
been connected to form an arcade which directs all
trafc towards a split ramp, and in turn leads directly to
the ambulatory and to the basement of the conference
hall.
From the entrance, a system of escalators leads directly
to the public gallery of the assembly hall, a rectangle
that completely surrounds the parliamentarians. The
entire mezzanine level contains facilities for the press: a
linear beam of editorial ofces and a suspended press
plaza for more public events such as press conferences.
On the ground oor, which basically serves as a lobby,
segments are screened off for informal meetings. The
oval structure contains three superimposed conference
rooms connected by a spiraling ramp. The ground oor
area also contains the reception and stage
accommodation for the Department of
Petitions.petitions are displayed in steel storage cabinets
as tangible evidence of the volume of public
participation in the parliamentary process.
Vitra re station, Germany.

Hadid succeeded conceptually and perceptually in

splitting space: the drawing that was a building
did not tote up to a consistent whole but emerged
instead as indeterminate and even irrational. The
geometries tricked the eye: they were spectral.

The Vitra Fire Station was a design of rare daring and

power, and with its completion, she succeeded
in taking Suprematist drawings into three-dimensional
space in a way Malevich never imagined and El
Lissitzky never achieved. In the translation from paper to
space, concept to reality, nothing was lost: at
night, with oods washing the leaning walls in a gradient
of light, the building looked exactly like the
paintings. In the impeccably detailed structure, Hadid
had built the vision.
Blades or wedges are concrete walls and roof pitch in
new directions give a strong sense of the dynamism of
For a re station in Germany for Vitra, an avant-garde this reinforced concrete structure was created based on
furniture company whose reputation was a based walls, in spaces arise.
in progressive design, she conjured her plan from lines of The whole building is constructed with reinforced
force extrapolated from surrounding hills and concrete in situ in the light, avoiding any added that
roads, selecting in their convergence on the site what distort the simplicity of its prismatic form and the abstract
emerged as a formative sketch for the building. quality of the architectural concept, paying particular
The originality of the design resulted in large part from attention to the sharpness of the edges.
carrying over illusionist drawing techniques The lack of detail was also applied on the inside, rough
into the built structure. Hadid seemed to stretch space opening frames, polished aluminum sliding planes that
by attenuating forms that tapered to points. close the garage area, guard rails or lighting design,
The edges of leading prisms conformed to forced maintaining a consistent language that gives meaning
perspectives that were multiple and divergent: the to the whole.
perspectives did not converge on the same vanishing
point, but led instead to points that did not agree
with each other in either height or depth

The building was not designed as an isolated object, but

developed as the outer edge of the garden area,
dening the space rather than occupying space.
This was achieved through the provision of the program
on a stretched, in a long, narrow building next to the
road that marks the edge of the factory. Space, dening
and accommodating the functions of the building, was
the starting point for the development of architectural
concept, a linear series and stratied.
paintings. In the impeccably detailed structure, Hadid
had built the vision.
Malevich's Tektonik.

However, beyond what the suprematists accomplished

on canvas, Hadid's intentions were in creating a
functional structure. In this way, Hadid's innovations and
work brought the suprematist ideas into a whole new
dimension and scale.

Malevich's Tektonik was Hadid's nal graduation project

at the Architectural Association. Hadid titled it in honor
of Kasimir Malevich, a Russian suprematist artist whose
work had inspired her. Malevich's Tektonik is a
conceptual painting of a hotel on Hungerford Bridge in
London. In her work, Hadid was particularly inuenced
by Malevich's writing that stated, "we can only perceive
space when we break free from the earth, when the
point of support disappears." (Designmuseum) It is
apparent the Hadid's geometirc structures in Malevich's
Tektonic are inuenced by Malevich's own
architechtonics. The structures appear to be almost
identical to Malevich's Alpha Architectonic. This hotel
that Hadid conceived has never been built.
Hadid used this painting to explore layering (Pritker
Monograph, 36), as we can see in the white, black and
red simple structures, which are compiled to make “I have always been interested in the concept of
variations of the layered structures in the bottom right, fragmentation and with ideas of
center, and top left of the painting. Hadid also explored abstraction and explosion, de-constructing ideas of
fragmentation in this painting (Pritzker Monograph, 37), repetitiveness and mass production. My work rst
as we see in the separation of layers, as well as in the bits engaged with the early Russian avant-garde; in
and pieces of smaller geometric shapes in the lower left particular with the work of Kasimir Malevich – he was an
of the painting, which make up the larger composite early inuence for me as a representative of the modern
structures. Hadid is conveying a structure that is not solid avant-garde intersection between art and design.
and static, but rather transformativen and uid. Hadid Malevich discovered abstraction as an experimental
used suprematist painting as a way of reconsidering principle that can propel creative work to previously
shapes and altering them from the ususal architectural unheard levels of invention; this abstract work allowed
angles and norms. much greater levels of creativity.” Zaha Hadid, 2007
Suprematist Compositions.
Kazimir Malevich.

The rst actual exhibition of suprematist paintings was in
St Petersburg. The exhibition included thirty-ve abstract
paintings by Kazimir Malevich, among them the famous
black square on a white ground which headed the list of
his works in the catalogue.
More radical than the Cubists or Futurists, at the same
time that his Suprematist compositions proclaimed that
paintings were composed of at, abstract areas of
paint, they also served up powerful and multi-layered
symbols and mystical feelings of time and space.
Malevich was also a prolic writer. His treatises on the
philosophy of art addressed a broad spectrum of
theoretical problems conceiving of a comprehensive
abstract art and its ability to lead us to our feelings and
even to a new spirituality.

Suprematist Painting 1916 is an abstract painting in oil on
canvas by the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich. While the
geometric forms of the composition are freed from
reference to the visible world, Malevich has used the
convention of 'overlapping' planes set against a white
ground to suggest a shallow and dynamic pictorial
depth. The thrust of the rectangular forms is broadly on a
diagonal. This determines the coloured bars in the upper
part of the painting, the dominant central blue
rectangle, and the orange and red bars that fall out of
the base of the frame. A counter-rhythm is established
with the horizontal red-br own block and the associated
small yellow bars.
Black Square is a cornerstone of abstract art rst shown
during The Last Exhibition of Futurist Painting 0.10 in 1915
and marks the start of Malevich's Suprematism – a new,
non-objective style of art characterized by geometric
shapes and monochromatic palettes that the artist
described as “the expression of pure feeling, seeking no
practical values, no ideas, no 'promised land.'”
Malevich declared the square a work of Suprematism, a
movement which he proclaimed but which is associated
almost exclusively with the work of Malevich. The
movement have supporters amongst the Russian avant
garde. Suprematism may be understood as a transitional
phase in the evolution of Russian art, bridging the
evolutionary gap between futurism and constructivism.
 Suprematist composition by Kazmir Malevich. Representating 2D painting in different layers. Extruding painting and giving mass to elements.

Giving heights to elements, creating intersections. Intersecting various elements with each others. Selecting masses, and representing oating Tektoniks.
The Peak.

Hadid's ideas for the Peak in Hong Kong were

competition winning, but were never built. The Peak
was intended to be a sports club and spa. The structure
was intended to explode in fragments from the
mountainside. Unlike the solid singular structure below,
the Peak had no cohesive body. The drawing allows us
to see how the planes of the walls, oors, and ceilings
are atypical, meeting at odd angles, varying from the
usual 90 degrees. The oor and ceiling planes become
confused in the space, fragmented in appearance as
well as function, almost defying gravity. The painting
gives us a perspective of how the Peak looked down on
the rest of the city of Hong Kong, how it stood in stark
contrast to other architecture, and how it used the
mountainside almost as a launching pad. Its jagged
edges are suiting to its surrounding rocks and ice. The
Peak is properly named, as it seems to be a violent
extension of the mountain itself.
The Peak was the rst-prize winner in a competition. The
site was set in the hills above Hong Kong harbor. The
natural topography of these hills is transformed by
excavating the site to its lowest level and constructing a Partially embeded, the two lowest layers contain 15
set of articial cliffs out of the excavated rock, which is studio units and 20 apartments, forming a podium for the
polished to blur further the distinction between man- club facilities. A void approximately 42 feet high
made and articial. The site is recongured into a separates these strata from the two uppermost levels,
sequence of immense, abstract, polished granite which house the larger apartments and the developer's
geometric forms. penthouse. Suspended within the void like hovering
The project’s force comes from the violent intersection spaceships are the club elements, which extend back
between these linear beams and the volumes of the into the man-made mountain. The series of oating
articial topography. ramps and platforms that articulate this space are
the usual hierarchies and orthogonal order are absent in supported by two vertical members, an elevator, and a
the project. steel truss containing services. Two elevators linking the
Within this newly dened territory, building elements clubs to the upper residential zone provide additional
oat, pinned only by twisted cocktail sticks. In the void support and a vertical counterpoint to the horizontal
are suspended entrance decks, a swimming pool, composition. Stress cables stabilize any other movement
oating platform, snack bar, and library. These objects among the oating horizontal members of the void. The
break free of the regular geometry of the beams. swimming pool rests in the roof of the second residential
The gap between the horizontal beams forms an layer. Lateral changing rooms are hollow square beams
indeterminate space in which everything is angular and in section, and act to stiffen the structure. The enire
joined by long diagonal ramps. A curved car ramp complex is constructed of steel and reinforced
sweeps up through the void and into the car park within concrete. All volumes suspended in the club area are
the topmost volume. framed in lightweight alloys with aluminum or stone
The club is stretched between the emptiness of the void cladding. Although the jurors faulted the winning design
and the density of the underground solids, domains for a ”certain lack of resolution in its details,” they
normally excluded from modern architecture but found praised its concentration ”on the exploration” of ideas…
within it by pushing modernism to its limits, forcing it The sculptural nature of this solution,” they averred
apart. In this way, the pleasure palace, the hedonist ”promises to extend the imagination and symbolize the
resort, is located in the twisted enter of modernist purity. essence of a new building type in a unique location.”