Zaha Hadid's Revolutionary Design Process: A Fusion of Art and Architecture
Zaha Hadid, renowned for her complex, surprising, and unique buildings, possessed a revolutionary design process that redefined architectural thinking. Her breathtaking designs often seemed to defy logic and gravity, but it was her approach to designing that proved most influential. This article explores her design process, tracing its evolution from early inspirations to later projects.
Malevich's Tectonic: The Spark of Inspiration
Hadid's journey began with Malevich's Tectonic, a painting she created as part of her fourth-year thesis at the Architectural Association in London. Her teachers, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, challenged students to use the work of revolutionary painter Kazimir Malevich as the basis for a project proposal. This assignment profoundly impacted Hadid's understanding of architecture.
Understanding Malevich's Suprematism
To grasp the significance of this project, it's crucial to understand Malevich's revolutionary approach to art.
- Objective vs. Non-Objective Art: Malevich pioneered non-objective art, moving away from representational forms (objective art) towards pure expression through abstract geometric shapes and limited color palettes.
- Suprematism: Malevich's movement, called Suprematism, prioritized the supremacy of pure feeling over the representation of the real world.
- Architectons: Malevich created sculptural objects called "architectons," translating his painted shapes into 3D forms. Koolhaas and Zenghelis tasked their students with using these architectons as the basis for real-world building designs.
Hadid's Interpretation: Abstraction and Unfettered Invention
Hadid found inspiration in Malevich's abstraction, viewing it as an opportunity for "unfettered invention." She felt restricted by traditional architectural drawing methods and sought new means of representation. Her thesis project, a hotel and apartment complex across Hungerford Bridge in London, reflects this. The painting, an abstracted representation of the complex, mixes perspectives, employs simple geometric shapes, and conveys a sense of movement. The painting is an abstracted representation of the complex, mixing perspectives, employing simple geometric shapes, and conveying a sense of movement. Hadid took Malevich's shapes, turned them into architectons, and then transformed those into a building.
The Peak: Expanding on Abstract Concepts
One of Hadid's early acclaimed works was her winning entry for the Peak, a private club at the top of a mountain in Hong Kong. Her paintings showcased the project's relationship to the city and mountain, almost as if the building grew out of the landscape. The sketches, a blend of plans and paintings resembling Arabic script, laid the foundation for the project's design. Hadid would often begin projects with these calligraphic drawings, refining them through painting before evolving them into buildings.
El Lissitzky and the Fourth Dimension
While Malevich focused on pure feeling, Hadid also drew inspiration from El Lissitzky, Malevich's protege, and the constructivist movement. Constructivism, rooted in Russia and founded by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko, saw art as a tool for social progress, emphasizing functional design.
- El Lissitzky's Influence: Lissitzky connected geometric shapes in a way that could be used as a basis for functional design.
- The Fourth Dimension: Lissitzky explored the fourth dimension, adding the element of time to spatial considerations. He used techniques like floating forms, multiple vanishing points, and overlapping planes to imply this unseen dimension.
The MAXXI Museum: Experiencing Time and Movement
Hadid incorporated the concept of the fourth dimension into her architecture, notably in the MAXXI Museum in Rome. The building's design, with its calligraphy-like forms and flowing spaces, invites movement. Hadid believed that the choices people make as they move through the museum affect their experience, embodying the element of time. The interior design featuring contrasting red lines and black forms against white walls and concrete floors, creates a constructivist composition. The parallel fins and baffles on the ceiling enhance the sense of movement.
Deconstructing Perspective: Illusion and Reality
Hadid challenged traditional architectural representation by questioning the illusion inherent in perspective drawing. She recognized that perspective, despite creating the illusion of depth, is ultimately based on flat shapes.
- Types of Perspective: The discussion included one-point, two-point perspective, axonometric, and isometric drawing.
- Playing with Distortion: Hadid incorporated distorted shapes from isometric drawings into her plans, blurring the line between illusion and reality.
BMW Center and Vitra Fire Station: Making Illusions Real
The floor plan of the BMW Center in Germany showcases this concept, with rhombus shapes, creating an illusion of 3D within a 2D plan. At the Vitra fire station, her first built project, Hadid explored the idea of "frozen action." She used distorted shapes and slanting walls to convey an explosion of movement, creating a dynamic and unconventional space. She created this whole idea through the idea of drawing and painting and creating these different ways of looking at buildings and designing them
A Lasting Legacy
Zaha Hadid's unique approach, combining artistic sensibility with an abstraction of the design process, resulted in some of the world's most breathtaking buildings. She believed in the power of design to improve people's lives, leaving a lasting legacy as an artist and architect.
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