Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku/Aserbaidjan // photo: ©Elnur Amikishiyev/123RF.COM
I love architecture so I love Zaha Hadid.
I MUST.
Architecture is the art of shaping our urban environment, the “look & feel“ of our city life. In this, Zaha Hadid excelled. Not only did she create unique buildings, but also sculptured in the form of walk-on-able poetic objects of immense vision, embodying the highest standards of aesthetics.
When I recall the Vitra Firehouse, and then consider her constructions in the years afterwards it always takes my breath away.
THE PASSIONATE EVOLUTION OF UNIQUENESS
studio elbglanz
Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul/South Korea // photo: ©Nattee Chalermtiragool/123RF.COM
And even if…
… one doesn’t share my feelings regarding this singular creation one must marvel at an oeuvre of such multi-dimensional vastness. Yes, oeuvre, for Dame Zaha Hadid acted with the passionate freedom of the artist, and left a dazzling body of work as her inheritance to mankind.
Breaking the mould.
As a woman, she bestowed upon women worldwide a legacy of personal power. To have fought her way to the top of a century-old male-dominated world—that of modern architecture—one must have some sort of inner rule I assume. Whatever – Zaha Hadid quite obviously had a target firmly in mind, and while never loosing sight of her goals she became one of the most relevant and sought-after creators in her field.
Hadid was a bloody cool-minded genius one of those courageous persons who just cracked it and came up with fluid solutions to rectangular specifications.
I love so many of her buildings. Even if some people think that a few of them better should have remained a draft… and also if to some of us it may be questionable why Zaha Hadid agreed to work for clients that are known for acting in a most degrading manner, partly even cold-bloodedly violating the most basic human rights…
I have fallen in love with the amazingly lush, liquid slope of the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan which seems to be melting away within no time. The gorgeously irritating MAXXI Museum with its confluent lines, the separations and intersections for in- and outside spaces. Hadids works are worth much more than words. And still al least; courageous radical monumental driving fearless irreplaceable.
To quote her very words:
„Well, it’s not normal practice.We don’t deal with normative ideas and we don’t make nice little buildings. People think that the most appropriate building is a rectangle, because that’s typically the best way of using space. But is that to say that landscape is a waste of space? The world is not a rectangle. You don’t go into a park and say: ‚My God, we don’t have any corners.'“
YES. NOW GOD…?
I just read a post somewhere – the media is full of Zaha Hadids passing away. This one I like best:
„Zaha left us ahead of time, but she did everything ahead of time.'“
I am really not into religion but nonetheless I enjoy the thought of her next to Lucio Costas, Oscar Niemeyer, John Lautner, Le Corbusier; and if God, in all his glory, is smart, he´d ask this terrific line-up to re-design his cloudy kingdom.