Zaha Hadid Queen of the World

''I don’t believe in relating to the environment per say. If you want to start afresh with something new and you are always relating to context.... What happened in the last thirty years the whole idea of context changed alot''

Zaha Hadid

(quote taken from utube interview)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-vhQSycfI

As a final thought on my year I happened apon an interview with architect Zaha Hadid. I was struck by the above quote. It challenged alot of what I have learned so far at University and I believe she is right. Her work is amazing in every respect. She is showing a glowing image of what the future could be. Her buildings are refined reflections of images we have encountered in many a sci fi movie.

She certainly takes the organic to new and exciting possibilities. What strikes me in particular is how respectful of the landscape she is. I wait in absolute anticipation of the Acquatic Centre for the Olympics. I love the way the building grows from the landscape and in turn the landscape becomes and extension of the building. This to me is the way I would love landscape architecture to go. I have always felt that architects and landscape architects should work hand in hand. The building should reflect the landscape design and vice versa. So often I have looked at projects which have a building with one language and a landscape attached and neither of them have any partlicular relationship with each other. Its as if two egos are fighting for attention.

The above quote is important to me as it seems to say, design something new bold create a unique style and dont get bogged down in context. I thing this can be successful if both the landscape and the architecture work together to create this statement. If however you have two different design philosophies then there is too much confusion.

I remember we had some employees from Martha Schwartz come and give us a talk last year on a proposed project by the Thames in London. The design was slightly over the top. The site was surrounded by pretty big buildings which were marked on the plans and visualisations as boxs with no suggestion of what they look like. Someone did ask how the architecture looked. The designers couldnt answer that as they had not seen the plans for the buildings.

The overall site was big and as the buildings are new, I felt that there should be some strong language shared with the landscape design. The whole scheme (landscape and architecture) could then make a powerful statement and stand on its own. Something tells me it won't.

Zaha Hadid has explored the realms of design; architecture to furniture design, landscape to shoe designer. Her style, bold, elegant and stylish has a definite langauge but she is by no means a one trick pony. 'Iconic' architects like Gheary come and go, like seasonal trends but Zaha is here to stay. I anticipate that just as people start to accuse her of sameness in her design she will bring something new to the table.