The Development Of Ideas In Creative Process Of Zaha Hadid - Essay Example

? The development of ideas in creative process of Zaha Hadid The development of ideas in creative process of Zaha Hadid Subtitle: How does idea become realized in architecture? Introduction In the history of the ancient civilizations of the West and East, the Renaissance and European Gothic, art and architecture were largely intertwined. However, with the turn of the 19th century, the class of merchants rose to power, and art began to lose significance. This was attributed to a split in society into competing social fragments, as well as specialization of knowledge into categories such as painting and architecture, which previously were considered to be in the integral class of arts. Works of architecture are products of art in the form of physical buildings and some other physical infrastructure, and which have cultural significance such as history of civilization. Architecture is hence not just a product distinct from art. It can be argued that architecture is in fact art, but in more physical and tangible forms such as buildings and other infrastructure1. In the ancient civilizations, the architectural designs were not just magnificent; they had monumental value that still lingers to date. It can be well argued that ancient architects developed such monumental forms of architecture because they upheld and embraced a much-intertwined connection between art and architecture. Essentially, it was not possible to depict the distinction between architecture and art during the ancient times. A few architects in modern times like Zaha Hadid have fortunately borrowed a leaf from the ancient times, and have recognized and demonstrated a fundamental connection between art and architecture. A drift from the fundamentals of architecture exemplified in ancient civilizations began with the revolution in urbanization that shifted focus of architectural construction and design from monumental value to effectiveness in the function of buildings and maximization of space that could be utilized. With the emergence of real capitalism where buildings grew into real estates and the economic value of buildings became the determining force behind architectural designs, a distinction between art and architecture became inevitable. Subsequently in recent times the artistic spirit in architects has caved in, as beauty, environmental and historical significance of building continue to be perceived as aesthetic and an unnecessary consideration. With this shift in priority, architectural articulation of artistic beauty and creativity is rapidly becoming something of the past2. With the current rapid revolution in information technology, the abilities and functions of architects will be able to be accomplished using computers; architects may have to revive the artistic fortitude that will move them beyond designing more than just functional infrastructure, but ornamental as well. However, the contribution of Zaha Hadids in illustrating the possibility of blending architecture and art cannot be emphasized. This paper seeks to prove a review and critical analysis of Zaha Hadids contribution in shaping future the architectural industry and profession. However, art, regardless of recent developments, still forms a sphere from which emerging architectural and technological inventions can be explored. It serves as an incubator for ideas, especially architectural ones, ideas that must be tested and investigated before being subjected to the real life pressures of performance. Art thus provides a platform for experimenting with ideas before they are actualized in real life situations. Every discourse, discipline and practice employs the system of art as a platform to brainstorm and experiment on new ideas. In 2006, Daniel Libeskind opened a new kaleidoscopic wing for Denver Arty museum, and which has been largely regarded as an architectural fantasy. This example reinforced an observation that quite often the architecture of museums stood as the real work of art that overshadowed the pieces of art exhibited inside. The conflict of interest is evident, since the architects of the recent museum buildings have their own understandable desire to demonstrate their artistic testimonial at the detriment of the primary objective of the project, which is to exhibit monumental pieces of art. A fair bargain would be to keep both, but more often than not the museums architectural designs have ended up overshadowing the pieces of art on display3. The connection between art and architecture is apparently the force behind Zaha Hadids uniqueness in design. She has stood out as the top architect of the century, not because she can design better, but because she better understands how to give her designs an artistic and authentic touch. To Hadid, architecture is not just about buildings with beauty, buildings that blend and portray an amazing relationship and coherence with the environment. Biography of Zaha Hadid Zaha Hadid is widely considered as the top woman architect of the century. She was born in a wealthy family in 1950 in Baghdad, and studied math at American University of Beirut between 1968 and 1971. She proceeded to Architectural Association School in the United Kingdom between 1972 and 1977. She later joined OMA (Office of Metropolitan Architecture) and in collaboration with Rem Koolhas, she commenced her career as an architectural designer in various fields that range from micro space such as furniture, to urban scale. Zaha Hadid was very ambitious right from her childhood. She grew up in a tremendously different Iraqi Republic from the present one. During her time, the country was western-focused, secular and liberal nation with a fast developing economy thrived until power was taken over by the Ba’ath party in the year 1963, and where her influential family played a significant role. Her father was a famous politician, industrialist and economist. He was seriously involved in the political matters in the country and even led a political party. Hadid did not see any reason as to why she should not follow her father’s footsteps of determined. There were several female role models in the democratic Iraqi, but in the field of architecture, there were very few. She decided to join the Architectural Association in the year 1972 in London, after she had graduated from the convent school in Switzerland and Baghdad4. Hadid’s cogency is both to her advantage and disadvantage. It is a disadvantage because a powerful character can make customers run for the hills. However, until just recently, she was known not for the constructions that she had made, but for the ones that she was not involved in; only preserved in her prominently dynamic, spectacular images. Normally, as in the instance of the Cardiff Bay Opera House, we find that the opportunities of building were lost quite dramatically. Ultimately, though her dynamism is to an advantage; like the natural selection of architecture, it assists in weeding out the weak customers together with projects, so that when the architecture is eventually constructed, it is actually strong-willed like the creator. If Hadid was actually drawn to any of her teachers then it is beyond doubt that Koolhaas was the person, who followed his individual ideas of neo-modernity in texts such as the Delirious New York of 1977. He gave her a job as an associate at the Metropolitan Architecture Office, which he co-owned together with Elia Zenghelis. However, she did not stay there for long, as she dad her individual ideas on architecture to develop. I was a long incubation, as she begat tutoring at the AA whereas developing her individual brand of neo-modernist architecture that went back to the roots of modernism in the early twentieth century’s suprematism and constructivism. The project that she used in her graduation; that is ‘a hotel on the Hungerford Bridge in London, was referred to as Tectonik of Malevich; this is a naming that was give after Kasimir Malevich, the suprematist who wrote in year 1928 that it is only easy for us to perceive space when become free from the world, when the support point diminishes5. Analysis of her creations Zaha Hadid had from the beginning immense interest in art. Her objective was to teach, research and practice at the same time. Hadids success as an architect is largely attributed to many years of research in development of ideas, something that may not be practical for many other people in her profession owing to the pressure of tight schedules and deadlines in the profession. But Hadid attributes her chance to develop her architectural acumen and ideas to the period she commenced her career between the 1970s and 80s, a period when projects had more value than buildings. At the beginning of her career, she had an inclination to constructivist ideology. The architectural presentations she rendered early on in her career portrayed compound broken angles with spaces that had an expression of vibrant strain. Zaha Hadids works are presented in various mediums, and they include paintings, models of architecture, animations, urban plans and design objects. She approached most of her architectural challenges through themes of design such as folds, fields, clusters and ribbons6. At the onset of Zaha Hadids career, she concentrated more on paintings than buildings, even though the paintings were seldom translated into architectural works. Most of her effort was devoted in undertaking research on the impact of urbanism on the cities in question. Hadids designs are best described as daring experiments of vision and which portray a striking relationship between buildings and their environment. Her ideas though unpopular and often were regarded as radical and impractical, she refused to let them be compromised. Her major breakthrough started. With the design and construction of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Ohio, her star suddenly began to rise with worldwide acclamation. By early 2000s, Hamid had close to 150 employees, and was on the road to shaping the landscape of world architecture. Regardless of the slow pace in developing her career, she undertook numerous small scale projects. But her major breakthrough was to be in 1993 with the construction of a fire station that had a design with several uneven angles, and when asked she argued that she could confine herself to one degree while there are 360 degrees. Hadid however contained to meet considerable obstacles with several of her designs being rejected despite admiration from her staff and peers .though sometimes considered too uncompromising , she was considered by many as an architectural pioneer who refused to waver from her vision. She attributed the resistance to her ideas to customs and femininity, but admitted her personality was a challenge to many. What made Hadid more popular in the beginning were not her architectural designs, but her ideas which found the way in industry magazines and galleries. These ideas were further enhanced at the Architectural Association where she was a teacher. While focused on developing her ideas, Hadid entered competitions on architectural design. In a design competition for a sorts club (The Peak), she warns the top award though it was not constructed. Between the 1980s and 90s she entered several competitions that were not made public, but received immense recognition within her circles7. Hadids idea of architecture was more than just constructing buildings; she strives to develop coherence between the buildings she designed, the users and the surroundings. Her idea she has developed through time has been to develop infrastructure that enhanced unity and coherence between the infrastructure and those who used it. This is exemplified in the architectural design she developed for BMW, where the f junior and senior personnel would inevitably meet more often while walking on the pathways within the facility. It was not by choice that she commenced her career by painting, it was out of necessity. Her vision and belief was that that new ideas could not be invented by conformity to the traditional ways by which architecture was represented. She opted to use painting in researching three dimensional representations in manifold view. This approach was to have tremendous influence on architectural design and construction. Gradually she has graduated from that generalization and disintegration to faultless coherence and consistency her primary motive and force behind her innovations was that architectural designs were to enhance social interaction. Her idea was to create space whose function was not definite yet enhanced social mobility and interaction. Conventional architecture was presented through floor plans, isometric and axonometric studies, but to Hadid, this could not effectively express the forms and spaces in her vision. This analytical and design approach enabled to generate the distorted unfolding volumes that shape her buildings. An example of her projects that captured a suspended movement’s sense is the Zollhof 3 Media Park, where the buildings seem to explode, shift, float and stack8. From a publication by Zaha Hadid architects, it is argued that, art in recent times has been the core platform for expressing emerging social occurrence and ideology. Art is about inventing and disseminating new perceptions of life. Art centers in essence thus provide a framework for realizing the untested ideas of society. Essentially, art does not express any specific content or idea, the only consistent thing about art is that it can only be expressed in public domain. It’s only through art that society can reinvent and experience itself. Essentially, art serves in current times as a replacement for traditional religion and church. Creativity has replaced sacredness, making it possible to effectively expose any social, economic, political, cultural or moral opinion. Some of her creations include: Vitra fire station was Hadids first project to be built. This project was a confirmation to her critics that her designs could actually be built. The intention of the project was to restructure it such that it gave identification with the street that was adjacent. It had a thrust that was horizontal and which was amplified by tilting vertical forms, and seemed to break or move. The station had multiple entrances, and different views of the station facilitated interaction of the exterior and interior, which portrayed an atmosphere of transparency in the building. In her more recent design of the museums upper ramp, the angularity depicted in former projects gives way to twisting forms which portray walls, ceilings and walls appearing to expand and merge, depicting a scene of continuous transformation. In this design, she demonstrates how her architectural ideas defy conformist perspectives of space, architectural design, and urbanization and enhance a requirement for continued research. With this design, she succeeded in generating architectural inquisitiveness while facilitating cultural and social relations9. By and large, urbanism and architecture are viewed to be mediums that are very distinct from one another, yet Hadids objective has been to form an integration of the two. Thanks to her continuous research, she has discovered unconventional ways of access to buildings, and ways to anchor it on ground, resulting in an unforeseen perspective of urbanization while at the same time transforming the site by creating space for further development. The functional value of her designs has transformed and expanded the space available for further public utility. Hadid in her architectural pursuits has drifted away from conventional tradition, as exemplified in her design of Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art. This piece of art is distinct from the conventional museum that is designed to isolate and protect artifacts on exhibition within it. To place the museum in an urbanized context, the entrance to the museum has a design that portrays it as emerging from the street, which by a gradual upward curve, turns out to be the element that generates a sense of organization in the building. Galleries for exhibition are interlocked to form create three dimensional forms, depicting a sweeping departure from the conventional series of spaced galleries. This piece of architecture exemplifies Hadids objective to explore all possible avenues to create public space. Her most recent design to be built is the Phaeno Science Center, wolfs burg, Germany, which lifts off the ground leveling a form that resembles the rudder of a sheep, discharging extra space below the building. The space has a design of smooth and gentle surfaces that distinguishes it from the aggressive angular forms in the city’s surrounding, depicting a rare welcoming surrounding10. Mesa for Vitra: Writer Edwin Heathcoat describes this as ‘Mesa turns out to be the spatial ideas’ microcosmic extrusion inherent in her literature. Form does not only follow function but rather is drawn along by the plan’s narrative and space’s flow. Nevertheless, it becomes something elastic and plastic, more Einsteinian that the Cartesian, an outline of a world that is shaped by the hidden forces and a dark matter, four-dimensional world whereby a table can damage the space that is within it as well as around it. It actually changes any space into the Zaha room. Candelier for Swarovski: Handid asserts that from her early days in this field at the Architectural Association, t the Architectural Association, she has always developed interest in the fragmentation concept. For her, the concept of fragmentation also has to do with that of dynamism, of a space explosion of some sort. For this piece, we find that every crystal of Swarovski can be regarded as a separate element interrelating with, as well as responding all other crystals11. Hadid, in all her works in all fields, we find that she utilizes the latest industrial and technological innovations. She makes her designs with the future in mind, extending the traditional boundaries of design, architecture and art into the unknown. Her silver paintings, which are her latest graphic technique, look like polished mirrors or metals. The creation of this effect is done by polyester skin of the work, which has actually been treated using gelatin and chrome. The pictures are captured and generated digitally in their virtual state’s instant. Immediately their printing is done, they are hand-printed so as to stress the opacity or even reflectiveness of various elements of architecture. Any particular project has many silver paintings, and the several versions serve as a documentation of the development of the project. For instance, in the Z-Island kitchen’s Tower 7 Gallery, she uses the concepts of ‘seamlessness’ and fluidity’ as shown in natural phenomena such as the glaciers’ flow or melting of ice. The basis of the proposal of Hadid of ‘intelligent environment’ is on the ability of the work to be in a position of responding concurrently to innovative and fundamental kitchen’s functions. The multimedia elements’ integration such as audio systems, the internet and television screens transforms the kitchen of Hadid to a place that appears to only be appealing to the sense of taste into a place that equally enthuses the sense of hearing and sight of the user. Bibliography Bernus, P., Nemes, L., Schmidt, G. (Eds.), Handbook on Enterprise Architecture, Springer Verlag, 2003. Bernus, P., Nemes, L., Williams, T.J., Architectures for Enterprise Integration, Chapman&Hall, London, 1996. Betsky, Zaha Hadid: The Complete Work, Lars Muller Publishers, 1998. Fowler, M., Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture. Addison-Wesley, 2003. Gordana Fontana Giusti, Patrick Schumacher, Zaha Hadid: The Complete Works, Thames Hudson, 2004. Hay, D.C., Requirements Analysis. From Business Views to Architecture. Prentice Hall, 2003. Heffner, R., The Pillars of Enterprise Architecture Terminology. Giga Information Group 2002. Jacobson, I., Booch, G., Rumbauch, J., The Unified Software Development Process, Addison-Wesley, 1999. Johansen, R., Computer Support for Business Teams. The Free Press, MacMillan, Inc., 1998. Kruchten, P., The Rational Unified Process An Introduction, 2nd Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2000. Lars Muller, Architecture of Zaha Hadid in Photographs, Lars Muller Publishers, 2000. Noever. Zaha Hadid: Architecture, Lars Muller Publishers, 2003. Peter Noever, Zaha Hadid: Architecture, Hatje Canz, 2003. Putman, J., Architecting with RM-ODP, Prentice Hall, 2001. Zaha Hadid, Peter Giovanni, Zaha Hadid: Car Park and Terminus Hoenheim, Lars Muller Publishers, 2004. Read More