by Amy Watson

"Gravity-defying", "fragmentary" and "revolutionary" are a few of the words used to describe Zaha Hadid's architectural designs. The Iraqi-born, London-based architect has stirred up continual controversy with her designs that defy a label in the Modern vs. Post-Modern architectural debate. In the past 15 years, she has gone from unknown student to "architecture's new diva" as the title of the January 1996 Architectural DigestUs profile suggested. Her work has been accepted as a significant contribution to architecture and her style is one that other architects now emulate.

These characteristics might serve to qualify her under Howard Gardner's definition of creativity. "The creative individual is a person who regularly solves problems, fashions products, or defines new questions in a domain in a way that is initially considered novel but that ultimately becomes accepted in a particular cultural setting." (Gardner 1993) Many issues that Gardner writes about in Creating Minds are relevant to a discussion of Hadid's career. By examining her creativity in the visual/spatial intelligence, I will attempt to conclude whether Gardner's model of multiple intelligence is relevant to the current era and domain of architecture in Zaha Hadid's case.

CHILDHOOD

Zaha Hadid was raised in a liberal, open-minded family which allowed her to explore new ways of doing things and think critically. She was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950 to aristocratic parents. Hadid's father played an important role in her creative development. He exposed her to many different cultures while always stressing the importance of her heritage. He demonstrated this through his studies at the London School of Economics and participation in the fight for Iraqi independence from foreign occupation. His progressive views on the industrialization of Iraq, housing issues, and the nationalization of the oil production influenced Zaha in her views of the world. HadidUs childhood experiences encouraged a belief in open communication between different groups of people, but also a strong conviction in Iraqi independence.

EDUCATION

Hadid's elementary education in England and Switzerland exposed her to many different cultures. She attended a nunUs school with Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Islamic girls. This is the first indication of marginality in her life. She felt distanced from her Muslim heritage at the school because of its Christian educational style.

"I never had a traditional education as a Muslim. In the Arab world, Islamic culture and Arab culture are the same. It's a cultural situation, not a religious situation." (Hadid 1995)

This dissension between Arab and Western influences reoccurred as she developed her architectural style. Hadid first became interested in architecture at age eleven, although she pursued other interests before attending architecture school. A friend of the family was designing a home for Hadid's aunt and would bring the models by and show Zaha. Her mother and father increased her interest by taking her to architectural exhibitions. Before pursuing higher education in architecture, Hadid studied mathematics at the American University in Beirut in 1968. The field of modern mathematics and the relationship between philosophy, physics and math interested her briefly before studied architecture. (Hadid 1995)

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION

The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, England, produces some of the most innovative designers in the profession. The school professes to provide a different type of architectural education demonstrated through a new style of pedagogy and emphasis on innovative social programs, materials and structures. (Building Design 1997). The set-up of the school includes a rotating group of tutors from members of the Association who develop close relationships with their students. The students are forced to develop their own educational plan by the school's loose structure. Students are left on their own to design projects and learn to seek out the expertise of their tutors who are generally world-renowned architects.

"They [AA students] seemed very witty, immensely sophisticated, rather bad draughtsmen and brimming over with ideas about change, alternative futures and new worlds." (Gowan 1975)

This was the environment in which Zaha Hadid's architectural style began to develop from 1972 to 1977 while she was at the Architectural Association.

"That was a very good experience because very early in my career you had to be quite focused because if you weren't focused you would not know what you wanted." (Hadid 1995)

"At the AA you have more time to develop ideas and, even if they don't have a product at the end, the main effort is on the method of learning," says Hadid.

CHILD-LIKE MIND

I propose that the pedagogy at the Architectural Association provided the freedom for Zaha Hadid to explore issues that reflect a child-like mind. A main theme of Hadid's designs exhibits that a building can float and defy gravity. This attitude is reminiscent of a child's drawings before someone forces the concept of gravity upon them.

The idea of defying gravity does not come from flying in the air, but from being freed from confining laws and conventions and making a new kind of space; consequently, answering a child's question in an adult manner.

Hadid also fits into the child-like character of geniuses in other ways some critics say. She has a tendency to portray a haughty attitude toward clients and the general public and her new style of painting (which I discuss under Domain) fails to help viewers interpret her ideas. (Vine 1995)

MARGINALITY

Another issue that separated Zaha Hadid from even other AA students was her non-Western European background. Hadid comments,

"I think being a foreigner in London in the seventies was also a very interesting period because it was after the sixty-eight revolution, people were much more liberal. They did not equate ideas to making money. This notion of displacement, being displaced is a very liberated experience. More and more because I was a woman, non-British and it kind of confused the people there. The more became confused about me the more they left me alone." (Hadid 1995)

This British attitude towards those they consider eccentric continued to effect Hadid's career. Her 1994 winning competition entry for the Cardiff Bay Opera House was "re-evaluated" after outrage at the idea of building it. The British support creative output "up to the point of production, then it collapses because the industry or the finance or whoever does not back it further," states Hadid.

Hadid did receive some support from an unlikely source; "People you wouldn't expect - young people especially - say to me, 'If this building can't happen, what can?' I've had an incredible reaction from abroad about it..."

The rejection of Hadid's design brings up an interesting aspect of Gardner's definition of creativity which specified that it must be within a specific culture. Who defines if a culture accepts an idea and what defines the limits of a culture? Would the British culture which differs from the more accepting German culture define the architectural profession's opinion of Hadid's work? In Japan, they are also more enthusiastic about Hadid's designs. Mario Botta commented, "she joins the trend of spectacular hypertechnological architecture which represents the common denominator of the latest events on this Asian archipelago."

Hadid's marginality leads to a characteristic that distinguishes her from others. Hadid proposes,

"Because I am a non-European I have a different system of thinking, my order is different. Deconstructionism and the structuralist theories are based on theories which were so-called rationalist, one way of doing things. I don't belong to that tradition. I belong to a tradition which already has a different order. They are called more emotional, intuitive, but intuitive is not instinctive. Intuitive is the marriage of rationalism and experience."

INFLUENCES (People and Styles)

After receiving her Diploma Prize in 1977 from the Architectural Association, Hadid went to work with one of her tutors, Rem Koolhaus, at OMA, Office of Modern Architecture. This relationship soon became too restrictive for Hadid, although she and Koolhaus remained close friends. Hadid remarked:

"My relation with OMA is more fundamental than working with them. There is almost a kind of non-visible dialogue between us... they supported me a lot when I was no question about that." (Levene and Cecilia)

Koolhaus served as a mentor and friend to Hadid during the time of her first breakthrough. As her former tutor at the Architectural Association, he could understand her work and the ideas that she was trying to convey. She obviously respects his opinion and values his friendship.

MAJOR BREAKTHROUGHS (10 year cycle)

Zaha Hadid's major breakthrough came in 1983 when her competition entry in The Peak project took first place. Her contest entry was originally discarded, but a late judge pulled it from the pile of rejected schemes. The project was to design a multi-level sports club in Hong Kong. Her design consisted of a "horizontal skyscraper which swept diagonally down the hillside site." (Vine 1995) The project was never constructed because of logistical reasons with the return of Hong Kong to China. This event portrayed an image of Hadid as a "paper architect," one whose projects were never built.

Hadid dug into the past to develop her new approach to architecture by studying the paintings of Russian Suprematists, who flourished in the years proceeding the Bolshevik Revolution. In addition, she studied the deconstruction of literary texts posed by French philosopher, Jacques Derrida in the sixties.

The Russian Suprematists "conceived enigmatic spaces with abstract forms dynamized by notions of force, as though matter energy... concepts of hyperspace displaced old static Euclidean cubes which concepts of space and architecture had long been based." (Giovannini 1992) Hadid took this concept farther by shaping three dimensional creations from the basis of the Russian Suprematists.

"The key idea, which was to make possible all the works that followed, including Cardiff, was fragmentation: shattering conventional modern forms into eccentric bits, then piecing them back together in new ways." (Popham 1996)

The question posed that seems to lead up to this new visual language is what would happen if you shattered the pure geometric forms of Classical Modernism which have become increasingly unpopular? What might you learn?

These questions are addressed in Hadid's Vitra Fire Station located in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The project was built in 1991-93 ten years after Hadid's first breakthrough on The Peak design, thereby, supporting Gardner's hypothesis of a ten year cycle in creativity. The building appears to be "in the process of tearing itself apart and flying off in all directions. The building ,more like a habitable sculpture, conveys a sort of visceral excitement that is not uncommon in large dramatic structures...but unthinkable in most buildings this small."

This fragmentary style addresses the needs of the inhabitants of the building more than the pure Classical Modernist forms ever did. It allows for a dozen different functions and characteristics to be tailored to consumer needs. A building can contain a strong image, light and airy feelings, noise-insulated spaces, and clear circulation routes in a synthesis of intersecting views and activities - "the essence of a lively city."

FAUSTIAN BARGAIN

One element of Gardner's study that I didn't find in Zaha Hadid's profile was evidence of a Faustian Bargain. In an interview with Global Architecture, she explains how she is unlike other architects who are notorious for being obsessed with architecture. "If you become very busy there are few things in life which you have to decide that they are very important to you. All my friends would say that despite the fact that I am hectic I try to still see them and go out and do things...that's the problem with architects, they are all terribly serious about themselves, they can't have a good time and act frivolously and be human beings." (Levene and Cecilia)

DOMAIN

One area that Hadid has branched from traditional architecture is in her style of representing architectural ideas. Her paintings are largely misunderstood by people who think they are to be taken literally. They do not represent a rendering, but a conception of a volume or space. Also, Hadid uses color as a method of working out lighting schemes which many people assume will be the colors applied to wall surfaces or floors. The paintings resemble collages in storyboards and multiple perspectives meshed together.

Interestingly enough, one article links her work to that of Einstein, one of Gardner's subjects, "Zaha became famous through her magisterial tableaux, in which she depicts buildings and cities in the warp and thrust of Einsteinian space-time." (Giovanni 1992)

Her work revolutionized the architecture field because it eclipsed the debate between the current schools of thought Modernism versus Post-modernism creating a new visual physics. "The scheme [The Peak] marked a shift in sensibilities from the certainties of the past and the moral pieties of industrial modernism to adventure in complexity lying between order and chaos. Passionate yet cool in its abstraction, the design was also teasingly witty." (Giovannini 1996)

FIELD

Gardner discusses the role of experts in the field defining creativity. While perhaps it may appear to early to declare Zaha Hadid a genius of architecture, her work has stood a short test of time. This is a difficult test in our present era of sound bites and fads. Her creation of a visual physics language has been met with mixed reviews. While her designs win competitions, many bureaucrats have tried to stand in the way of her designs coming to fruition. The Prince of Wales being a strong critic; an inner circle member of his stated, "The kind of absurd architectural arrogance that the public has long learned to distrust," speaking of her Cardiff Bay Opera House design. Additionally, Piloti called, "a monumental folly at the taxpayer's expense, which will be surrounded by camera-clicking Japanese architects day and night." (Giovannini 1996)

On the other hand, her work has remain popular and respected by many professionals and academics. One problem that she and many other cutting-edge contemporary architects face is that their work is so individualistic that their students have trouble distinguishing between learning from and copying their styles.

"Hungry for alternatives to the sentimental gentility of historicism, architects are attracted to the fearlessness of her provacative, futuristic vision and the sheer optimism that it projects." (Dietsch 1987)

CONCLUSION

Zaha Hadid fits Howard Gardner's model of creativity in many ways. She has experienced marginality, had approximately ten year breakthrough, obtained intellectual and emotional support during times of breakthroughs, been accepted as a revolutionary in her field, and displays some child-like qualities. I don't however believe that she necesarily fits the profile with which Gardner concludes his book Creating Minds. I could not detect a Faustian Bargain or significant instances of child-like qualities. Gardner sums up thata creative breakthrough combines "a thorough, often precocious mastery of the relevant domains of practice" and "a form of understanding, a variety of intuition, that is properly associated with the consciousness of human beings at a nearlier point in their lives." (Gardner 1993) He does mention that this seems a defining characteristic of the modern way of thinking. I would conclude that his method is valid for the people that he studied and provides a valid framework to start from in judging creativity, but perhaps is not the best way to examine Zaha Hadid.

REFERENCE LIST

Dietsch, Deborah. (1987). Beyond Modernism. Architectural Record 6,120

Gardner, Howard. (1993). Creating Minds New York: Harper Collins Publishing

Giovannini, Joseph. (1992). Architecture's Only Diva. Harper's Bazaar 125, 337, 190-225

Giovannini, Joseph. (1996). Architecture's New Diva Makes an International Scene Architectural Digest 53,1, 26-35

"Goodbye Theory, Hello Practice" (1997). Building Design Miller Freeman Publishing Company. 9/19/97, 20

Gowan, James ed. (1975) A Continuing Experiment: Learning and Teaching at the Architectural Association London: Architectural Press

Hadid, Zaha M. (1995). [Interview with Yoshio Futagawa]. Global Architecture 03, 12-20

Levene, Richard and Fernando Marquez Cecilia. Interview with Zaha Hadid. El Croquis 52

Popham, Peter. (1996) A Model Architect: Zaha Hadid's Radical Plan for the Cardiff Opera House has Brought her International Fame. Why, then, has it been Rejected? The Independent (London). 2/11/96

Vine, Richard. (1995). Futuristic Baroque. Art in America 83, 7, 34-40