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What Hadid Has Done for Architecture: An Interview

"There are 360 degrees," Ms. Hadid famously said. "So why stick to one?"

From the Wallstreet Journal -- Interior Design, 10/25/2006 12:00:00 AM

New York--Zaha Hadid's painting "The World (89 Degrees)" looks like a distorted map of the Earth. It suggests a colorful world where angles don't have to be right, or the horizon a straight line. In the painting, the architect plants her unusual buildings in a universe that has been carefully tailored to host them. "There are 360 degrees," Ms. Hadid famously said. "So why stick to one?"

This painting perfectly sums up the attitude of the Iraqi-born architect. When the world has no place for her original creations, then she'll just reinvent the world. And indeed, it may appear as if some of Ms. Hadid's designs could exist only in an alternative universe. Her work seems to change shape depending on where you're standing, creating the impression of buildings that just can't sit still.

But while a fair number of the designs currently on display in "Zaha Hadid: Thirty Years in Architecture" (through Oct. 25) at the Guggenheim have not been built, many of them have. After years of difficulty and well-publicized frustration in getting her buildings constructed, now Ms. Hadid's unique projects are found from Cincinnati to Abu Dhabi. She has many buildings in Europe, particularly Germany, and is even branching out into China. Cincinnati's Rosenthal Arts Center was her first and so far only finished building in the U.S., but in the works is an arts center in Bartlesville, Okla.

In 2004, Ms. Hadid was the first woman to take home the Pritzker Prize, architecture's most prestigious award. But her status as the world's leading female architect is only part of the story. "I don't think the decision for showing Zaha Hadid at the Guggenheim is based on whether she's a woman or not," says Monica Ramirez-Montagut, one of the curators of the current exhibition. "It was solely based on the quality of the architecture that she does. Zaha is one of the most innovative and audacious architects today."

To illustrate Ms. Hadid's original fusion of design and function, Ms. Ramirez-Montagut points to the architect's BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany. Conveyer belts hang over the office space in the building, so that the cars in production pass directly over the heads of the employees. The idea, Ms. Ramirez-Montagut explains, is that having the presence of your ultimate objective within view helps remind you of why you are there.

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