Zaha Hadid Overview

As architect for the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hadid was asked about the possibility of creating a neutral space to house art. She contended, "'Neutral space' is a wishful oxymoron. All space is colored by individual memory and experience."... [more]

As architect for the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hadid was asked about the possibility of creating a neutral space to house art. She contended, "'Neutral space' is a wishful oxymoron. All space is colored by individual memory and experience." The experience and memory this world-famous architect often taps into is not her own but that of the viewer. She doesn't just want people to see her buildings; she wants them to weave them into their full experience, past and present. In the case of the Contemporary Arts Center, she's interested in the viewer's experience of art. The Arts Center opens with what she calls an "Urban Carpet." The entrance begins on the street, seducing visitors gradually, gracefully into a main mezzanine. It makes our entrance into an art-experience feel natural, inevitable. From the outside, the building looks like a wacky tower of variously sized boxes. The boxes fit together in a weighty collage that appears to hang precariously over the intersection below. The whole resembles an abstract piece of contemporary sculpture, a larger version of the works inside. Inside, this boxy jumble turns out to be made up of separate rooms meant to function specifically with different art pieces. The environment for each work complements the work itself. Hadid bases her designs on her own paintings and drawings. She looks to find innovative ways to use light, space, and shadow and often employs animation tools to explore how these elements might interact in a potential design. Educated at the Architectural Association in London, Zahid has worked with such notables as the preeminent Rem Koolhaus. Undeniably innovative since the early 1980s, her works span the globe. Zahid has won awards for the Peak Club in Hong Kong, an art and media center in Dusseldorf, and the Cardiff Opera House in Wales. [show less]