Zaha Hadid

My recent gallery research led me on to look at the architectural style and designs by Zaha Hadid. As i learned very recently, zaha hadid is not for everyone and at times can be a bit crazy (Glasgow's Museum Of Trasnport).

Below i have exampled Interior and exterior images of two buildings design by Zaha Hadid Architects which i especially like, in particular the different angled views of the stairs within the MAXXI building.

Zaha Hadid - MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts

Space vs. Object

“Our proposal offers a quasi-urban field, a 'world' to dive into rather than a building as signature object. The campus is organized and navigated on the basis of directional drifts and the distribution of densities rather than key points. This is indicative of the character of the MAXXI as a whole: porous, immersive, a field space. An inferred mass is subverted by vectors of circulation. The external as well as internal circulation follows the overall drift of the geometry. Vertical and oblique circulation elements are located at areas of confluence, interference and turbulence.

The move from object to field is critical in understanding the relationship the architecture will have to the content of the artwork it will house. While this is further expounded by the contributions of our Gallery and Exhibitions experts, it is important here to state that the premise of the architectural design promotes a disinheriting of the ‘object’ orientated gallery space. Instead, the notion of a ‘drift’ takes on an embodied form. The drifting emerges, therefore, as both architectural motif, and also as a way to navigate experientially through the museum. It is an argument that for art practice is well understood but in architectural hegemony has remained alien. We take this opportunity, in the adventure of designing such a forward looking institution, to confront the material and conceptual dissonance evoked by art practice since the late 1960s. The path led away from the ‘object’ and its correlative sanctifying, towards fields of multiple associations that are anticipative of the necessity to change.”

- (Zaha Hadid Architects. (2010). Zaha Hadid's MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts. Available: http://buildipedia.com/aec-pros/featured-architecture/zaha-hadids-maxxi-national-museum-of-xxi-century-arts. Last accessed 12/11/2014.)

Walls/Not Walls: 

Towards a Contemporary Spatiality

“In architectural terms, this is most virulently executed by the figure of the ‘wall’. Against the traditional coding of the ‘wall’ in the museum as the privileged and immutable vertical armature for the display of paintings, or delineating discrete spaces to construct ‘order’ and linear ‘narrative’, we have created a critique of it through its emancipation. The ‘wall’ becomes the versatile engine for the staging of exhibition effects. In its various guises -- solid wall, projection screen, canvas, window to the city -- the exhibition wall is the primary space-making device. By running extensively across the site, cursively and gesturally, the lines traverse inside and out. Urban space is coincidental with gallery space, exchanging pavilion and court in a continuous oscillation under the same operation. And further deviations from the Classical composition of the wall emerge as incidents where the walls become floor, or twist to become ceiling, or are voided to become a large window looking out. By constantly changing dimension and geometry, they adapt themselves to whatever curatorial role is needed. By setting within the gallery spaces a series of potential partitions that hang from the ceiling ribs, a versatile exhibition system is created. Organizational and spatial invention are thus dealt with simultaneously amidst a rhythm found in the echo of the walls to the structural ribs in the ceiling that also filter the light in varying intensities.”

- (Zaha Hadid Architects. (2010). Zaha Hadid's MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts. Available: http://buildipedia.com/aec-pros/featured-architecture/zaha-hadids-maxxi-national-museum-of-xxi-century-arts. Last accessed 12/11/2014.)

Zaha Hadid - Heydar Aliyev Centre