Zaha Hadid Rules !
The thing with Zaha Hadid is that she does not do much theory, or the theory she does is a bout buildings and not cities. Her buildings are about the logical extensions of material and form–so radical in many ways that she is considered dangerous if she is considered at all. From her early work with Rem Koolhas, who taught her about joy, fun and sex to the debacle with the Cardiff Opera House to the triumph of Cincinnati’s Contemporary art Centre, she has come out as one of the most interesting and epic workers.
The opera house in Cardiff was a jangle of broken glass and shattered concrete, a deconstruction of modernist forms i the middle of the welsh countryside, looking at it from the crevice of green hills, it should not have fit at all. It did though, it rolled along with the landscape, and shot out like fountains of glass when an obstruction occurred. It offended Charles so much, that he banned it and she lost her commission.
There was the swooping, penetrating fire station in Germany
here
, which resembled nothing more then a monastery or bunker for the 22nd century. It was safe and projected this protectionist instinct. It would never fall, for wind or rain or flood or fire, it was the object that would protect the rest of the village, because it was so protected itself.
There was the ski jump in Innsbruck, here which was a virtuoso reduction. There was nothing there, but a hill–no chalet, no steps, nothing but a thrusting spire that resembled the mountain it was in. Radical because of its sculptural tendencies were not extraneous but nessecary to the function of the work. It was Le Corbusier’s machines for living, and Van De Rohes Form following function but there was nothing but the machine, nothing but function.
Then there was the museum in Cincinnati, herecubist and brutal on the outside, and entirely about making sure that the works are shown, there is a theatre and a cafe, but these are foreplay to exhibition spaces that are wide, and welcoming, womb like and retreating. This is no civil improvement project intended for the bragging rights of small minded burghers, this is the just a place to see the best art we could find.
There were other projects she lost, that were not understood and were cancelled. And now she has won the Pritzker, the first woman to do so, which means that she can do what she wants. There is the new museum in rome that is black and shiny, like a matrix of coaxial cable, and the BMW factory, also in Germany, which is a paraphrase of the first Bauhaus temples to industry.