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Zaha Hadid Architects


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some feel she is overrated for several reasons, some politically incorrect (who cares right); some of her buildings appear on paper to be inspired and well thought out; highly sophisticated and progressive.  i've heard that some of her buildings have not been well-received or implemented with the best workmanship.

 

personally, i enjoy looking at them but have yet to experience one in person.  yes, i too think she is a genius; however, creative genius isn't always suited for practical buildings.  i think that buildings as art/sculpture seldom make good business sense. 

 

 

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I'm sure I'm completely out of touch with regards to modern architecture, but I don't really get inspired by Hadid's or any other modern or post-modern designs.  The boxy, clean lines approach seems like it's been de rigueur for the last 80 years or so.  Personally, I'd like to see a revival of palladian or art deco.

 

I do have to give her credit for the use of curves, though.

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Bachanon, that is very interesting because when I did my literary gig as a high school teacher in LA, one of the the essays my students had to write involved critiquing museums as art themselves. We would tour The Getty, Malibu and the Hill, as well as Disney Concert Hall and Huntington Gardens. Must respectfully disagree. A building, tower or complex as a work of art, IMO, establishes the structure and draws more interest, as well as increased business. But I do like what you said regarding renderings verses reality. I too, haven't visited any of her creations, so in all fairness, I must temper my opinion until then.

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August948 and any others; I think the more organic, feminine approach to architecture which has curves and such is awesome. I am bored with straight lines and right angles, and want something different. And YES, I would love to have the luxury of fast forwarding 100 or so years to see what NEO style resurrects it's stylish head. I would love to see a marriage between post modernism with the attention to detail like Baroque/ Art Deco Nouveau.

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Zaha Hadid is currently one of my favorite architects right now. She has a sensibility that is far ahead of many of her contemporaries in relation to aesthetics and form. When you look at her architecture you see the future. It's also a perfect parallel to current contemporary culture. Zaha's buildings play off elements of sensationalism which is an element that is very strong in media and everyday life. I mean each one of us in a since wants to live some sort of sensationalist life and we even want to portray to others through social media and the like that we do have a fabulous lives. If this is the sentiment of our time why can't our architecture be the same way! There is also something to be said with just how uncompromising her architecture is. It is very in your face, and is uncompromising to structure, but what's cool is that the buildings will always praise structure and materials, yet its the architecture that is in control.

 

The only thing I don't really care for in her practice is her business ethics. Because she pushes a lot of buildings in the Middle East and Asia it means that a lot of her buildings are built with the cheapest labor possible. Zaha has already made a very damaging comment where she responded to workers dying on the site of the Qatar World Cup stadium and essentially she didn't really give a crap.

 

She is this generations architect though and because she is so far ahead in terms of her theories on aesthetics, she will be around for a very long time. Not to mention she was a protegee of Rem Koolhaas! How awesome is that?! One of the greatest architects of the last 20-30 years instructing the next dominate figure in architecture. I have so much other stuff I would say about her and go into specific examples of her incredible architecture, but she is definitely not overrated and is here to stay.

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Thank you for that information. I love her boldness, and the fact that she is a woman in definitely a mans world, makes me love here even more. I also do lament her nonchalance regarding fallen workers. Don't get too BouRgeoisie Madame. Lol. But wonderful bold statements is what we need in the US, especially TX.

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Bachanon, that is very interesting because when I did my literary gig as a high school teacher in LA, one of the the essays my students had to write involved critiquing museums as art themselves. We would tour The Getty, Malibu and the Hill, as well as Disney Concert Hall and Huntington Gardens. Must respectfully disagree. A building, tower or complex as a work of art, IMO, establishes the structure and draws more interest, as well as increased business. But I do like what you said regarding renderings verses reality. I too, haven't visited any of her creations, so in all fairness, I must temper my opinion until then.

 

i agree.  i think you make my point inadvertently.  seldom, is there a business model (thinking typical investment scenario) that would make a building as art/sculpture viable.  perhaps, i should have stated my point differently.  a concert hall, a museum, a large city library; these uses usually require large donations or trusts in order to be built.  typical investors are not ponying up money for most of the buildings in this category, that i'm aware.  that said, i have seen residential condos with starchitects, but this too is rare.

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The only thing I don't really care for in her practice is her business ethics. Because she pushes a lot of buildings in the Middle East and Asia it means that a lot of her buildings are built with the cheapest labor possible. Zaha has already made a very damaging comment where she responded to workers dying on the site of the Qatar World Cup stadium and essentially she didn't really give a crap.

 

I'm not familiar with Hadid or her work so I looked this up.  Holy s**t!  882 workers have died in the preperations for the 2022 world cup in Qatar?

 

http://www.archdaily.com/480990/zaha-hadid-on-worker-deaths-in-qatar-it-s-not-my-duty-as-an-architect/

 

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I like the look of her designs -- very organic, but also kind of the 70's Buck Rogers futuristic style.

 

But she's one of those "theoretical architects" that are such a problem these days.  They put together beautiful designs without much thought to whether they will work or not.  Calatrava is that way, too.  One architect told me about being in a room full of architects and Calatrava presented his big vision for a large building.  All of the "practical" architects in the room started rolling their eyes.  In the end, the building was never built.  It was simply not possible, largely from a plumbing perspective.

 

I've had arguments with some architects about this, too.  Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the sacred cows, is known for his beautiful buildings. But they are maintenance nightmares.  It's my contention that architecture is more about beauty, it's about buildings that work.  IMO, someone who designs buildings for aesthetics only isn't an architect, they're a painter.

 

Back to ZH -- She had an exhibition of outdoor pavilions that she designed.  The whole thing was delayed weeks or months because construction was beyond difficult.  Once they were done and the exhibit opened, I went on the second day, not the first, and they were in terrible condition from people walking, standing, and sitting on them.  For the duration of the exhibition, most of them were roped off (not that people cared anyway), and in a constant state of being repaired.  

 

Pyramids=Good architecture

Pavilion that disintegrates under the weight of a two-year-old's Nikes=Bad architecture

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I like the look of her designs -- very organic, but also kind of the 70's Buck Rogers futuristic style.

 

But she's one of those "theoretical architects" that are such a problem these days.  They put together beautiful designs without much thought to whether they will work or not.  Calatrava is that way, too.  One architect told me about being in a room full of architects and Calatrava presented his big vision for a large building.  All of the "practical" architects in the room started rolling their eyes.  In the end, the building was never built.  It was simply not possible, largely from a plumbing perspective.

 

I've had arguments with some architects about this, too.  Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the sacred cows, is known for his beautiful buildings. But they are maintenance nightmares.  It's my contention that architecture is more about beauty, it's about buildings that work.  IMO, someone who designs buildings for aesthetics only isn't an architect, they're a painter.

 

Back to ZH -- She had an exhibition of outdoor pavilions that she designed.  The whole thing was delayed weeks or months because construction was beyond difficult.  Once they were done and the exhibit opened, I went on the second day, not the first, and they were in terrible condition from people walking, standing, and sitting on them.  For the duration of the exhibition, most of them were roped off (not that people cared anyway), and in a constant state of being repaired.  

 

Pyramids=Good architecture

Pavilion that disintegrates under the weight of a two-year-old's Nikes=Bad architecture

 

That kind of dovetails into an experience I had recently.  One of my sons is considering either architecture or civil engineering.  So we visited with both schools at UH.  The civil engineering prof we met with mentioned that the difference between the two is that the architecture school was more about the art than the practicality of actually putting up a real, working building.

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I like the look of her designs -- very organic, but also kind of the 70's Buck Rogers futuristic style.

 

But she's one of those "theoretical architects" that are such a problem these days.  They put together beautiful designs without much thought to whether they will work or not.  Calatrava is that way, too.  One architect told me about being in a room full of architects and Calatrava presented his big vision for a large building.  All of the "practical" architects in the room started rolling their eyes.  In the end, the building was never built.  It was simply not possible, largely from a plumbing perspective.

 

I've had arguments with some architects about this, too.  Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the sacred cows, is known for his beautiful buildings. But they are maintenance nightmares.  It's my contention that architecture is more about beauty, it's about buildings that work.  IMO, someone who designs buildings for aesthetics only isn't an architect, they're a painter.

 

Back to ZH -- She had an exhibition of outdoor pavilions that she designed.  The whole thing was delayed weeks or months because construction was beyond difficult.  Once they were done and the exhibit opened, I went on the second day, not the first, and they were in terrible condition from people walking, standing, and sitting on them.  For the duration of the exhibition, most of them were roped off (not that people cared anyway), and in a constant state of being repaired.  

 

Pyramids=Good architecture

Pavilion that disintegrates under the weight of a two-year-old's Nikes=Bad architecture

 

Oh lord lol me and you are bound to have a few mexican stand offs then! I fully respect your option btw. It's very sound and is in line with many both who are in the profession and out of the profession.....I'm going to really hold back right now because that's not the aim of this at all. In fact I forced myself to start as a draftsman and not a designer so I can learn exactly what goes into a building so it can reinforce my designs later because I have at least a baseline knowledge of how it works.

 

That being said EVERY building is a maintenance nightmare whether designed by a starchitect or an intern over seen by a licensed architect. You are hinting at a subject of contention that has raged for hundreds of years! Is architecture in the realm of high art or does it only exist in the realm of the mundane, function for function sake, and program first above all others. Are architects suppose to be bold or safe. If a building is merely one created through a process of program being thrown together with a skin over it....is it even architecture? Same could be said if it is just a building created from some wild abstract concept or its just there to be pretty...is this architecture? Architecture, and what you were saying about "aesthetics" is really about Form! Form and how that form interacts with space. That is it. Form and space. Everything else is secondary in the hierarchy of "what is architecture?" If a building is very functional but the form is crisp and pure......architecture. If it is a sculpted work of art, but it's because the form says it should be and it meets every expectation.....architecture.

 

Now about Zaha's pavilions you were stating. If the construction was beyond difficult is that the fault of the contractor, who probably had every tool necessary and knowledge to build it, or is it the architect who designed and not only had to figure out the human weight necessary to hold it up, but also choose the materials, how it could be constructed, how it would stand up to weather and pressure? If something is hard to build does that make it bad architecture? if it is easy to build is this good architecture? Do we want everything to be by the book or do we want to shoot for the stars, push the boundaries, and seek what could be possible?

 

I'm simply putting out there questions. Not all of these have to be answered because these questions will continue to be pondered long after we are gone from this earth. If it's anything I have learned so far in my short life is that it's not all black and white.....just gray. A very murky gray.

 

Btw if you would like to know more about the questions I'm talking about I'm starting a wonderful book on "Aesthetic Theory". Pretty interesting so far and it deals with exactly where this is going.....but hopefully not for that would be way off topic lol.

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I guess I fall distinctly into the practical side of this.  The lifespan of the building should get as much consideration as the aesthetics.  If you subordinate maintainability for aesthetics then you are creating temporary installation art.  If superhuman efforts need to be made to keep it up, eventially it won't be or it will succumb to the elements.  Then it will be a cool building with only a foundation and pictures left for it's memorial.

 

I suspect some architects don't really care as long as they can make a name for themselves in the here and now.  A building really only has to last as long as their career does.

 

Interestingly, we get some parallels to this in the IT community where cool systems with all the bells and whistles get built in order to turn a buck and then become maintenance nightmares afterwards.  I've found IT consultants in particular can be pretty bad about that.

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I think that's hitting below the belt with your middle passage there....seriously if that is where you want to take this then don't even bother replying and just get it back to Zaha. There was absolutely no need to bring that into this discussion. The maintainability was just fine...the other two parts.....no. Take those cheap shots elsewhere.

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I think that's hitting below the belt with your middle passage there....seriously if that is where you want to take this then don't even bother replying and just get it back to Zaha. There was absolutely no need to bring that into this discussion. The maintainability was just fine...the other two parts.....no. Take those cheap shots elsewhere.

 

If you disagee, that's fine. But let's not pretend that all architects, engineers, or even database developers (me) have hearts of gold.  Otherwise wouldn't Hadid care enough about the 882 workers that have died working on her project and others in Qatar to try to do something about it, given her international standing?

 

 

When The Guardian recently asked Zaha Hadid about the 500 Indians and 382 Nepalese migrant workers who have reportedly died in preparations for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the architect behind the al-Wakrah stadium responded:

“I have nothing to do with the workers. I think that’s an issue the government – if there’s a problem – should pick up. Hopefully, these things will be resolved.”

Asked whether she was concerned, she then added:

“Yes, but I’m more concerned about the deaths in Iraq as well, so what do I do about that? I’m not taking it lightly but I think it’s for the government to look to take care of. It’s not my duty as an architect to look at it. I cannot do anything about it because I have no power to do anything about it. I think it’s a problem anywhere in the world. But, as I said, I think there are discrepancies all over the world.”

http://www.archdaily.com/480990/zaha-hadid-on-worker-deaths-in-qatar-it-s-not-my-duty-as-an-architect/

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Well lets not be naive here and say that there aren't people in both cases in every kind of industry. You are exactly looking at this in a way which i said isn't. This isn't a black and white thing and neither is what happened in her case. Were we there? No. Do we know the circumstances of all this? No. Of course what I said earlier is that I don't care for her ethics, but that wasn't shoot at the profession as a whole that was a shoot at what she expressly conveyed on the subject and that circumstance. You simply took a cheap shot at not ONE, but several professions which is just lame. Certainly that didn't need to be handled in such a way. I mean this is about her architecture not her ethics which is why i made it clear that I wanted to move back to her architecture. But....No, clearly that was too much distraction for this thread.

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Her phrasing was inartful (to say the least), but apparently accurate.  The structures are actually put up by building contractors, not architects, and in most places the government does set out minimum safety requirements.  

 

We used to have far more construction deaths on large projects here in the US, as well.  Roughly 100 died putting up the Hoover Dam, a dozen on the Empire State Building, and so on...

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Well lets not be naive here and say that there aren't people in both cases in every kind of industry. You are exactly looking at this in a way which i said isn't. This isn't a black and white thing and neither is what happened in her case. Were we there? No. Do we know the circumstances of all this? No. Of course what I said earlier is that I don't care for her ethics, but that wasn't shoot at the profession as a whole that was a shoot at what she expressly conveyed on the subject and that circumstance. You simply took a cheap shot at not ONE, but several professions which is just lame. Certainly that didn't need to be handled in such a way. I mean this is about her architecture not her ethics which is why i made it clear that I wanted to move back to her architecture. But....No, clearly that was too much distraction for this thread.

 

I think you have misread what I said.  I'm not placing a blanket accusation on architects or engineers.  I'm saying that, as you've noted with regards to Hadid, some aren't going to have sterling ethics and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that some, not all, but some, are going to be more concerned with their paychecks and next projects more than whether their work stands the test of time.  That's neither unusual nor unexpected given human nature.

 

I do stand by my blanket accusations against IT consultants, having been one and having to clean up after many.  I consider them guilty until proven innocent, much like I regard politicians.  :P

 

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Her phrasing was inartful (to say the least), but apparently accurate.  The structures are actually put up by building contractors, not architects, and in most places the government does set out minimum safety requirements.  

 

We used to have far more construction deaths on large projects here in the US, as well.  Roughly 100 died putting up the Hoover Dam, a dozen on the Empire State Building, and so on...

 

I don't think that gives her the right to cop out and essentially say "it's not my job".  If she was a janitor with no influence, maybe that would work, but if she's at the top of the profession she could at least give the appearance of concern, or better yet bring it up with whoever is in charge, since apparently she's not.

 

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There are architects who refuse to design buildings in countries where safety standards are minimal, if non-existant.

 

Good article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/arts/design/22pogr.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

As for Zaha Hadid...  I like her attempts at design, though I tend to find her work repetative in the same way I find Frank Gehry's work repetative.  Neither are bad architects, far from it.  I just think that both get a lot more "airtime" than they rightly deserve.  Sometimes understated = beautiful.  And honestly - the one project I've seen of her work up close was in Strasbourg, France and it really didn't look very nice.  Of course it was a transit station.

 

Also, I really loath architects who have schematic designs that are so.... "artsy" you (or me - an architect) have trouble reading them clearly.  There is an art to the conceptual plan or rendering and some push their weirdness/artistic-ness too far.  Rem Koolhaus and his weird collages is another one.  Makes for a reasonable book, particularly since most of these architects no longer reside in the real world - like the rest of us - they're the Tom Clancy's and JK Rowling's of their world... everything they do is celebrated even if its not worthy of celebration.

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  • 1 month later...

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/architecture-critic-acknowledges-a-mistake-in-critique-of-zaha-hadid/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=2&

 

So it seems we were all doped by someone who should have known better. I am now retracting all my opinions in terms of her ethics on this matter and I think others should do the same. It's pretty shameful that her words were twisted in such a way that it portrayed her as someone who didn't care at all for these people.

 

From a portion of the Times article about the Mr. Fillers admission of his enormous error. In this part it shows her statement in full context in terms of migrant workers building stuff in that region:

 

 "I have nothing to do with the workers. I think that’s an issue the government — if there’s a problem — should pick up. Hopefully, these things will be resolved.” Pressed to say whether worker deaths in Qatar concerned her, she said yes, but that she was more concerned about deaths in Iraq, where she was born."

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I disagree.  Zaha has every right to accept a project in Qatar.  She also should give pause to consider the type of workers and type of training/healthcare/safety etc. these men are going to recieve.

 

The deaths in Iraq were caused by a war.  War is hell.  War is terrible.  Deaths caused by building an "ultra-luxe" 70 floor highrise condominium are... well... you tell me.

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  • 1 year later...

Unfortunately, Zaha  passed away this last week. Apparently from complications while hospitalized. We've lost an important architect who deserves a lot of credit for pushing the boundaries of design, the use of new materials while certainly challenging structural engineers. I was hoping that someone like the Contemporary Art Museum would have commissioned her to design a  building, but unless someone has a contract for a project that could be built its not happening.

Its a loss for the 21st century.  

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  • 7 months later...

Oh wow. I mean are there not enough multi-million pound "2nd homes" in London? What a crisis! What exactly would the city do with all this new tax? Pave the streets in gold and move all the peasants into commie block/Ivy loft style beehives in the exurbs? Get rid of all public places so these people can't gather and protest? I didn't expect class warfare to be so out in the open. 

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From the replies, Rob Rickey @ approx 8:45 Central...

 

Take a look at Houston, Texas, where no-rules and market forces have created a truly unsustainable and unlovely city. Is that where you want to live?

 

H-Town Represent!!!  I'm so proud... (*** sniff... ***).

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