Running the Show over Space
March 31 passed away a prominent architect of modern times, the first Arab woman who received the Pritzker Architecture Prize - Dame Zaha Hadid. Her projects leave nobody indifferent: all of them were enthralled, but some fascinate the public, while others cause bewilderment or even rejection. Nevertheless, from the very beginning ubiquitously was recognized the uniqueness of the professional style of the master, her independence and all-consuming passion for work. The architecture of Zaha Hadid can be considered as a desire to change reality and discover new opportunities of the physical world, an attempt to escape from the classical framework and create something absolutely new. Her designs are distinguished from the history of world architecture as a separate chapter.
Zaha Hadid’s ideas were far ahead of her time, and perhaps because these buildings resemble the aliens from the other worlds. Every of these great master designs gracefully demonstrate her power over space. The curved lines, dissonant angles, fancy volumes, distorted perspective - all this somehow inexplicably composed into a coherent pattern a unique, full of intense dynamics. High-rise buildings designed by Zaha Hadid sometimes seem to contradict all the laws of gravity - such as “inverted skyscraper” proposed to the British city of Leicester, or the Signature Towers in Dubai. Giant structures soar up to the skies for tens of meters, looks airy and absolutely not cumbersome.
Looking as if they were delivered from a parallel reality, the futuristic skyscrapers of Zaha Hadid are harmoniously woven congruous pattern of the urban fabric. A vivid illustration of her style is the International Youth Cultural Center, built in Nanjing. Nanjing International Youth Cultural Centre is located on the river in Hexi New Town; Nanjing’s new central business district (CBD). The project includes a 106,500 sq. m. conference centre, two towers totaling 258,500 sq, m., 100,000 sq. m. of basement areas and the plaza that terminates the CBDs main axis on the riverfront. The project is Nanjing’s flagship development scheduled for completion in 2014.
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Materials provided by Zaha Hadid Architects