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Zaha Hadid: Architect of life patterns

A month before her untimely death, renowned architect Zaha Hadid spoke to Khaleej Times columnist Mariella Radaelli.

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The relaxing energy of nature echoes through the architecture of Zaha Hadid, whose fluid forms were reminiscent of undulating rivers and dunes. Her quest for complex, flowing space turned her buildings into patterns for life in the 21st century.
"My ambition has always been to create fluid space," said the Iraqi-born British architect. "Our clients are increasingly calling for something radical. The designs became more dynamic because the projects we now build are so much larger and more complex than before - they must accommodate so many different programmes in one design. It is obviously non-Euclidean geometry."
Among the world's most internationally renowned architects, Hadid has left a mark in varied locales across the globe. She had completed about 50 projects around the world, among them the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany; the London 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre; the Shaikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi; the Guangzhou Opera House in China; the MAXXI Museum in Rome; the Riverside Museum in Scotland; the CityLife residential complex in Milan and Innovation Tower in Hong Kong.
She talked quickly in a deep voice from her London office. She was small, with a quivering energy. Yet a strong personality is evident.
Born in Baghdad in 1950, she studied maths in Beirut, then went on to England to study architecture in 1971. She lived there since.

The successful womanBorn on: October 31, 1950 in Baghdad Studied at: American University of Beirut, Architectural Association School of Architecture Died on: March 31, 2016 in Miami, US Major realised projects Vitra Fire Station (Germany) MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts (Italy) Guangzhou Opera House (China) Bridge Pavilion (Spain) Shaikh Zayed Bridge (UAE) London Aquatics Centre (UK) Riverside Museum (UK) Heyder Aliyev Cultural Center (Azerbaijan) Innovation Tower (Hong Kong) Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park Maggies Centre (Scotland) BMW Central Building (Germany) Major ongoing projects One-North Masterplan (Singapore) Napoli Afragola railway station (Italy) One-Thousand Museum (Miami, US) Danjiang Bridge, Taipei The Performing Arts Centre, Abu Dhabi Great Honours First female to receive Pritzker Architecture Prize (2004) RIBA European Award (2005, 2006, 2008, 2010) Stirling Prize (2011, 2012) Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2012)

Hadid's great linchpin was her optimism, which she related to the experience of growing up in Iraq during the 1960s when the nation was in full development and women were empowered. "There was an unbroken belief in progress and a great sense of optimism," she said. "That era was very important to me and critical to my development."
She liked to work with fluidity since she believed it visually simplifies everything.
"You can then cope with more complexity in a building without crowding or cluttering the visual scene. People ask 'why there are no straight lines, why no 90 degrees in your work?' This is because life is not made in a grid," she said. "If you think of a natural landscape, it is not even and regular - but people go to these places and think it's very natural, very relaxing. I think one can do that in architecture."
Ultimately architecture was all about wellbeing to her: the creation of pleasant and stimulating settings for all aspects of life. But she thought it is also important to build projects that provide uplifting experiences that inspire, excite and enthuse. "Particularly civic and cultural architecture is one of the most important tools to enable any society to progress. An arts centre, a community centre, a school, a public park - these are projects accessible to everybody that eliminate segregation and divisions often found in commercial, single-use developments."
According to Hadid, architecture did not follow the cycles of fashion, politics or economics. "It follows only the inherent logic of cycles of innovation generated by social and technological developments. Buildings must evolve with new patterns of life to meet the needs of their users. What is new in our generation is much greater levels of social complexity and connectivity," she said.
"My work is operating with concepts, logic and methods that examine and organise the complexities of our lives today."
And ecological considerations were invested throughout her work.
"Huge advances in design, construction and material technologies are enabling architects to rethink form and space using new, much more efficient construction methods and materials. These building are able to recognise changing condition to optimise their environment to suit the immediate needs of their users. With the architecture itself responding to daily usage patterns and changing environmental conditions, buildings can now contribute to a more sustainable society," she stressed. "Like many architects, we are implementing sophisticated ventilation and building management systems in our projects to improve the ecological balance of a building. We are also researching new materials and construction methods that also bring significant environmental benefits. We are beginning to find significant solutions to the ecological challenges that are the defining questions of our generation."
How much of her inventive architecture sprung from her Iraqi origins?
"There are no formal references to my cultural roots in my work, but it is this mathematics of the Arab world that I am most fascinated by - the mixture of logic and the abstract," she said. "Geometry and mathematics have tremendous connections to architecture."
Nevertheless, the fluid landscape of the Middle East seemed a permanent inspiration in her work.
"My earliest memory of architecture, when I was 6 years old, was of my aunt building a house," she said. "The architect was a close friend of my father's and he used to come to our house with the drawings. That triggered something because I was intrigued by it."
She was seduced into studying architecture after a visit as a child to ancient Sumerian cities in the south of Iraq. "My family used to take long picnics where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet in southern Iraq. In these remarkable river landscapes there is this amazing flow between the land and the water and the wildlife that extends to out to incorporate buildings and communities. The seamlessness and flow in an architectural context is very endearing," she said.
Mariella Radaelli is editor at LuminosityItalia, a communications agency in Monza, Italy