Avante-Garde Architect Awes Audience

Internationally-known architect Zaha Hadid gave a slide-show presentation of her work and discussed its underlying theory last night at the Graduate School of Design (GSD).

Some fans drove overnight from Ottawa to hear her talk. Nicole Riess, Terra Kitzul and Lynn Kasinska, all architecture students at the Canadian Carleton University, wanted to see her in person before studying in London--Hadid's home city--next year.

Jorge Silvetti, chair of the architecture department at the GSD, introduced Hadid's work to the crowd of 450 at Piper Auditorium as "suspicious, disturbing, but also alluring."

"It proves that architecture as a fine art has not run out of steam," he said.

Hadid, who is now a visiting scholar at Yale, spoke of her desire to lift buildings off the ground to create open public spaces at ground level. She likened the walls of her buildings to skin peeling off an onion.

Without a question and answer session, the lecture left a number of the audience still puzzled about aspects of Hadid's work.

"I wanted to ask her at what point she thinks about materials [she uses in her buildings]," said Wynne Mun, a GSD student.

Nonetheless, many said they were awed by Hadid's creations.

"There is a departure from what is conventionally taught," said GSD student Dwayne Oyler. "Her work is highly influential."

Charles DiPiazza said Hadid is "at the center of the avante garde movement in architecture."

When she won a major competition in Hong Kong in 1983 with a series of abstract paintings, Hadid was a relative unknown in architecture circles.

Since then Hadid's paintings and drawings, a medium for the exploration of her design, have appeared in a number of museums, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and San Francisco and the Architectural Association in London.

Her built work, while not numerous, has won her public and academic acclaim internationally. The Vitra Fire Station in Rhein, Germany and the Mind Zone at the Millenium Dome in London are her most well-known works to date. Both include numerous non-right angles and cantilevered surfaces.

"It's too personal to be influential," said Associate Professor of Architecture Scott Cohen, responding to the question of what impact Hadid's work has on the teaching of architecture.

"The fire station makes a good image, but as a space it is odd," said Catherine Lessen, an architect at a Boston firm. "When it was rendered in concrete, it suffered a bit."

Indeed the main objection to Hadid's work, many say, is that what may be visually appealing on paper does not necessarily work in three-dimensions.

"It's a lot of pretty sculpture, pretty art, but how does it work?" asked Gwen Erskine, a Boston architect.

Professor of Economic Psychology Linda Pelzmann, a visiting scholar at Harvard, emphasized how important personal relationships are to Hadid's work.

"Before Zaha does anything for you, she wants to know you," she said, discussing the interaction they had before Hadid designed Pelzmann's apartment just outside Vienna.

Hadid's upcoming projects include Contemporary Arts Centers for Cincinnati and Rome and a ski-jump in Innsbruck, Austria.