Zaha Hadid is one of the most interesting architects in the world.
She is sometimes called, "Architecture's One and Only Diva."
She's a leading member of the Avant-Garde of architecture.
She won acclaim at age 33 for her design of the Peak Club in Hong Kong.
Her most famous work to date is probably the Vitra Firehouse in Germany, but that may change.
She's getting lots of attention for her design for the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I am pleased to have her here to talk about what she is doing. There was a time,
when you were a young architect, you designed the Peak Club, got lots of attention—never built.
Well, as an architect, you don't have complete control of your destiny. It was one of the frustrations of this profession.
I won the Peak Club literally at the time
Margaret Thatcher went to China and that whole thing with Hong Kong kind of—
vanished. And the whole market collapsed. And so, we always say there's a kind of other reason for these things.
But we have no control of political situations. And of course, when I won the Peak [Club], I mean when I—
For a day, they did not know who it was, who won it. And had never heard of me. They thought it was a guy.
They called me "Mr. Hadid" and I—when they discovered it was a woman, there was a bit of fluffing going on.
But we don't have a control of that situation, and I think that there still remains a slight cloud
which is dissipating over women architects because—I'm not sure why.
It's dissipating now?
Well, I think it's—yeah, I think there are more women in the scene. And it's not seen as a such a strange thing.
They are very good, many—you know.
Of course, they should be. I mean why—"Oh, absolutely."—why do you think that it was a male preserve for so long?
I really—I mean people ask me this all the time. I have no idea. It doesn't make any—
I mean, I'm not saying it's a—it's an interesting question because I actually don't have a particular explanation for it.
I think it's not just the—the thing with architecture is that the profession is mostly male, but also the
related industries are male-dominated. Whether the contractor's world or the developer's world or whatever it may be.
It is, you know—the trade is mostly men, but I think it will change like anything else.
So what's the challenge here? First of all, you're an artist and you love contemporary art. Yes?—"Yes."
So this is interesting because you're gonna design a building in which there is an engagement between
somebody who comes to this public building, the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, and art, and more than that.
This is interesting because you want to, the curator, the head, the director wants to create a building
where artists will design or will create art for the building—"For the building, yes."—which has to do with space.
I mean, one of the things about this building is it's not a collecting museum. It's a borrowing museum, basically.
That means they require—"Meaning they are running exhibitions in there."—yeah, it means that they need tremendous flexibility, on one hand
but they also need an identity, you know? As a kind of a—as a figure.
Also, I think that these always brought the need [of] a civic aspect which you say—
"What does it do for the city?", "What is the feedback to the city?"
And, therefore, what it was seen as—
The ground floor, for example, is seen as, really, an extension of civic space in the city.
So you can enter the museum, you can sit down, have lunch, whatever, and you don't have to really—you can only pay,
if you have to pay, when you go to the back of the building.
Also what we thought about is, how—
Because of these two possibilities of potentials of flexibility and specificity, [about identity],
How these could be seen as space which could be pre-designed as sometimes—
It's almost like a kit of how you can have very small spaces which, maybe, they're for the projection installation,
to a very vast space with a very big show.
But that brings us to another point. You gottta go up. This is a vertical building not a horizontal build, right?—"No, definitely."
And also you've got—and tell me about this is which is interesting.
We'll see a little bit—let me see the street scene of this building, [the] Contemporary Art Center.
Tell me about the idea of the carpet, the "Urban Carpet" and what you want to do in the lobby.
Well, the idea that I was working on was not necessary physical only, but [also] conceptual.
You know, you have a the street as if coming through the building and moving up.
Almost like a kind of continuous surface. And the idea that—you know, you have a
public space, which is vertical, which all the circulation, and also matched with the lobby, which is also—
So the idea [that] the street could be the lighting, could be the paving, but also that this is a civic space.
It's almost open. You know, it could almost be like a square, and where people can enter, sit there.
It's like any time of the day. The difference in this situation [is], where most of downtown
areas in the [most of downtown] are commercial.
There are the banks or office buildings or retail.
And what was interesting about it was, it is not about any of these things. It's about a cultural event, an event space.
So it's very visible. It's transparent. You can see when you pass by the lobby or you pass by the building
that there's another thing happening there,
which is maybe an event or people are just eating [and] having a drink.
It's like a plaza, [if I were to] put it this way, but it's part of the museum.
And another interesting thing about the program is that—there is one floor, which is called the "Un-museum."
The "Un-museum"?—The Un-museum.
Which is mostly educational, and it means that they can commission artists or art pieces which could be touched.
You know, it's mostly for kids, but it could be for grown-ups
where you no longer have this idea that art is precious, you can't touch it. So it's educational, it's much more tactile.
And then the connection between this idea of this public space, which is like a playground for children, and the lobby.
And what connects them is this circulation space, which we call the "urban carpet." The idea of
urbanism not as an event. Actually [it's] kind of strung through the building.
And the way you move through the building is much more to do with idea of "city landscape."
Because the spaces are clustered together like...
you know, aggregates. And it's like sitting, like seeing a view of a very large city, but implode into the museum.
All right, look at this. This is the exterior of the Contemporary Arts Center.
This will be scheduled to build—what, December '99 to finish in the fall of 2001, correct?
Right? Well, we hope so, or we're being optimistic?
No, no, no, no. I think it's going very well. I mean, the time might be optimistic—we'll see—to do it in one year.
All right. What am I looking here? This is an isolated exterior, right?
Well, the idea—this is a cluster made of different kind of...
transparencies. For example, they could be solid here because it's a museum,
but they could be intercepted by the pinkie one, like, this could be the offices.
So there could be trans—the other kind of—
Interrupted by transparency or solidity. So you could see an exterior, which is very solid
But one aspect could be transparent because the offices are aggregated inside the galleries.
So if you are in the interior, you may see people, you know, within the gallery space—
you don't see them because of the frosted glass, or whatever—
moving around, which could become almost like the installation.
but they actually have this kind of light and air and you bring in light into the building.
And the intention is that these are clusters of spaces
[that] also have crevices between them, which can bring in light to the outside. So you can have a very good lighting artist to do
that or you could have choreography of lighting on the street. But the idea is that first, you have to signal that
this is not a retail building. It is not offices.
This has events which are cultural, which are open to the public. You can just go in and enjoy
almost like a kind of interior park—the space.
What is it about museums?
I think of [Richard] Meier, I think of [Frank] Gehry...
and others who love to design public institutions and museums.
What is it that makes them appealing to an architect?
Well, I think in our modern society, I think the one aspect of architecture is civic.
You know? And so...
I mean, there has not been much research, or done work on like, housing as a kind of civic event—
maybe also that will change—or other institutions.
So I think museums are interesting in that sense, you know. And also their challenges of spatial quality
to an architect because you have to also deal with the ideas of light, you have to think about how
the person, not only how they place themselves inside the building, but how they place themselves inside the building and view art.
I think it has many challenging aspects to it.—"Challenging?"—Yeah, I think because of its civic role.
Would you rather do horizontal or vertical? I mean, can you make a broad statement that you prefer...?—"No."
But your experience had been more horizontal than vertical.
Well, because of the sites were—
we had at the time were mostly more horizontal, and also I think that in the Peak [Club], for example,
I responded to the word of the "tower."
That you could actually do a horizontal skyscraper as opposed to a vertical one. They could have the same intensity given that you have land.
And I was also very interested in the product I call "the ground."
The ground, I thought, was very interesting for me because it could generate a new plan and also can generate
different kind of organizational system within a ground condition.
I don't mind whether they are high-rises.
Thinking back to where I started this conversation—
Can you think of any reason your architecture is different because of your gender?
I mean, I don't think so.
You can't?
I mean, maybe—I'm sure that women think differently, I mean, I don't know.
But I mean, I actually know men who think more like me than other women. I mean, I really cannot say that.
There might be an aspect of it, which I think,
maybe it is, but I couldn't, I can't find it.
I can't really say, "this is like this because I'm a woman."
But I am a woman, so it's an outcome of that.
Yes, well, you are. Sure. You wanted to be a chanteuse at one time, didn't you?
Or did you think about that or would you say you had this reputation as a singer?—"No, I mean, I never—"—
You'd break out in song at a party at the drop of a request.
Well, that was 20 years ago.
Oh, you don't do that anymore?—"No, I haven't done it in—"
In how long?
I never did that.—"You never."—No, it was a story my friend always told, "Zaha can sing."—"Yeah, alright."
And I just said [yes] because I see my students.
As a joke, I was singing. I could sing. But, I mean, not professionally in any way.
And of course there was an article saying, "Zaha, the Chanteuse."
You know, I mean, I suppose...
"You suppose what?"—
There was a moment when, you know, when the moment, I think, when I was at the AA in my fourth year,
I could be anything, you know? I could be a choreographer, I could be a...
I mean, sure, an astronaut. I mean—
And that was the great thing about education.
If they can give you a window out that you can, actually,
through your own resource for education, through research, you can do what you want. It's a tremendous thing.
I just want to show this before we go. Take a look at the Center of Contemporary Art in Rome(MAXXI).
This, the edge of the thing where you see these pitched roofs—this was also on the site.
This is a site, which was an existing barracks belonging to the Ministry of Defense and the ex-Minister of Culture, Walter Veltroni,
that and with almost everything, is given to the Ministry of Culture as the site for a future contemporary art museum.
In Rome, they don't have a contemporary art museum. They have a museum of modern art, but not a contemporary art museum.
And, of course, they have a fantastic collection of Arte Povera, which is art from seminal Italian artists.
And it's really a center, as opposed to a museum.
Anyway, it's like a marriage between the Tate in London and the Getty. Like Modern Art and Getty.
So it has libraries, it has an art gallery center, it has an experimental district.
The intention was to, kind of, make a field project which—it has one reading on one hand,
and the second reading you can read individual buildings.
So it's much more like streams, and it's layered like an archaeological project. So like a million layers over each other.
You know, other than what's happening at MoMa, there's not anything hardly going on here, is there?
Yeah, I find that shocking, actually.
I do, too. This city—
I mean I figured, you know—
Yeah, in London also. I mean there are many new projects, but it's all restoration, you know?
And there is no—I think, in New York
I always think of New York in a—it's finite. That the grid is blessed.
And it's unpenetrable. And that's how it is. And I think that,
you know, they ought to think about what happens to the edges of Manhattan,
what happens in the downtown if the work shift changes?
Do we really think about the skyscraper as an entity? I think is still valid, but do we think about it?
Do we think about how it could connect to public life?
I mean what is interesting about New York is that it was an undeclared kind of
submission to the city, which says the lobby spaces in New York were brilliant, you know?
Because they are public spaces, you know.
And when you're on Sixth Avenue, and when you go from XYZ, that whole Rockefeller Center development,
[that] very much addressed this idea of complex programming matched with incredible fluidity—
often in terms of people movement. So, one has to really look at these things again.
You see, people, I think—what has been lost and what has to be regained is that the theoretical project
was ultimately the thing which people achieved to want to build.
And there has been a sort of reluctance to accept the fact that this is not about just theory, which was never going to be put into the mainstream.
The whole intention is that these ideas have to move into the mainstream because without them, there is no progress.
Or there is static kind of condition.
Okay. Thank you so much, Zaha Hadid.
Thank you, pleasure to be here.
We'll be right back stay with us.