Human Rights Watch said that, along with the Crystal Hall, stage of the 2012 Eurovision song contest, and the park-cum-shopping mall of the Winter Garden, the centre is one of the city's many oil-fuelled grand projects that have seen local people evicted by force. — theguardian.com
From earlier today: Zaha Hadid wins the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year Award 2014
While almost 250 homes were cleared to make way for Hadid's building, (questions have also been raised about the rights of those who built it. In 2010, while the project was under construction, the global construction workers' union, BWI, exposed one of the largest cases of human trafficking in Europe, of migrant labourers from Bosnia and Serbia forced to work in Baku in appalling conditions, subjected to physical and psychological violence, with their passports confiscated.
11 Comments
Poster girl for starchitecture.
Zaha --it's simple: just pretend to care -- that's all. Tell your PR officer to write up some sentimental non-binding statements about zero tolerance and.... done! But if you continue to proclaim worker rights are not your problem, your ship will sink dragging all your worthy accomplishments with it.
Didn't that building essentially burn down already?
Michell Joachim - With all do respect, I hope your post is satirical. If not, the ignorance in that statement is unimaginable. Please reassure me.
It's sad to me that architects are happy being the lackeys of the worlds most corrupt plutocracies, from the USA to Azerbaijan. Its even more disgusting when they get off on their own pathetic celebrity.
@Mitchell, ZHA couldn't pretend to be grateful for an opportunity face-to-face with a potential client (evidenced here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ25Gvs3SKQ) Yes, it is simple, but for ZHA humility went out the window a long, long, long time ago. Not to mention that anytime anything remotely humane(Common Ground) or historically analytic(Elements) happens within the larger international architecture community Patrick Schumacher is vehemently up in arms online about shunning political correctness in architecture. Zaha had been an exemplary leader in the profession for a very long time, but leaders, especially at her level, don't exude ambivalence about issues this critical. Great architect, without a doubt, but leaders in the profession engage and inspire us to contribute productively to the discourse that moves the ship forward. She gave that seat up ages ago.
Umm Michaek Caton,...are you really that concerned about humility towards the client when what is being conveyed here is news of the destruction of people's houses and the running of slavery labour/concentration camp to get her designs built?
This is not really about bashing her history or her architecture or her "leadership" (which is a very strange term - whom is she leading? The world of architecture is rich with figures and their works, all totally different). By jumbling stuff up, you yourself display nonchalance towards the actual concern. By that, I mean, you're just adding tools to attack her with because your concern is somewhere else totally.
It's about death and suffering left in the wake of these projects and a construction industry whose stark maximum profit-least expenditure leads to running slave camps for labourers from the "third-world" - the ugly illustration of how neo-liberalism feeds on global inequality. It is about how they -the people who actually have a say in this, like Zaha- will all pretend to be uninvolved, pretend to be themselves subservient to a system that dictates the necessities of acting this way. Its a disgusting conflation of greed and complacency. Again, there are many architects and engineers who really have no say in this (they also usually come from "third world countries"), but I refuse to believe that she is not a critical part of the problem here.
Tammuz, I appreciate your perspective, and yes this situation as a whole is about death, suffering and inequality. I'm not concerned about Zaha's client relations or Schumacher's rants. The examples were intended to highlight a projected attitude, which extends to her ambivalence on the issue of workers rights.
Other leading international architects have outright refused to work in certain parts of the world, or on particular commissions, due to the exact conditions presented here. Taking that sort of position displays leadership on these issues to the broader AEC community. So yes, this has a lot to do with leadership.
Let's not pretend for a second that there aren't just as many "first-world" architects, if not more, who equally have no say in whether a project like this moves forward. Nonetheless, accepting commissions like this and having them constructed under these conditions requires acceptance of some level of responsibility, if for any reason, because she agreed to do the project.
money = rights.
If you have some, you get some. If you have no money, you can't possibly be of profit to anyone, so you have no rights. The moment you lose the ability (you likely never had) to be a global consumer, your life is worth nothing.
I would love to get Architecture for Humanity/ Habitat for Humanity/ some NGO involved in building housing, both for displaced residents and workers affected by this projects, but that is just a small piece of the problem.
For architect's who went in to this profession to "change the world" or "improve lives" Architecture must seem quite impotent in the face of rampant systemic corruption. There can be moments of brilliance, exceptional buildings, but the larger canvas we build upon is quickly being destroyed.
Zaha has publicly dismissed being accountable for worker rights. I cannot imagine someone of her profile maintaining such an obdurate position towards inhumanity.
Michael Canton: ". Zaha had been an exemplary leader in the profession for a very long time, "
myself: "her "leadership" (which is a very strange term - whom is she leading?."
Michael Canton:"Taking that sort of position displays leadership on these issues to the broader AEC community. So yes, this has a lot to do with leadership."
So, Michael, you mention leadership....I'm asking you where she leads, then you answer that she's not leading (at least on the topical grounds), adding that it has to do with leadership. I do not contest that leadership, pertaining to this topic, isn't relevant. in fact, this is already implied apropos my: "the people who actually have a say in this, like Zaha- "
As for your: "Let's not pretend for a second that there aren't just as many "first-world" architects, if not more, who equally have no say in whether a project like this moves forward. "
I'm not pretending. I have worked in an environment where indeed "first-world" and "third-world" (where's the second) architects are treated very differently. I'm not necessarily talking about the owner of a firm or top manager, I'm talking about regular design and site architects working below management. I see you work in Dubai...well, you should be familiar with what i'm saying. The fact that you may not be implies how buffered you from the reality of architects and engineers from other backgrounds (I know the Emirates very well). To state the obvious:
1- As a westerner architect and engineer- indeed, irrespective of your abilities-, in Dubai and in Abu Dhabi, you are typically paid at least twice what an architect from an arab country is, around 3 or 4 times what an architect from far eastern or subcontinental asian architect or engineer makes.
2- Typically, architects coming from many of those countries are paranoid about losing their jobs because they're well aware that they're not precious "white meat" (I'm talking proverbially, as in westerner, you need not be white), they can be replaced at the bat of an eye (especially after the crisis).
3- If they do get flown back to their home countries, awaits them is a level of poverty that further adds to their fear and attachment to their jobs. This is not at all as accute with the better paid counterpart - and, typically, the overriding westerner architects and engineers (irrespective of their abilities in comparison to non-westerner), are freer to jetset, eat at hotel restaurants every other day if they choose, fly every now and then to some country or the other. In the meantime, they can stash away a good amount of money and if they fly back home and lose the job (a far less likely prospect if they happen to be a westerner ) , well, they've made good money, their home countries are far more affluent, their prospects far better (after all, should they generally suck at their jobs - they can dupe another self-hating Arab or self-hating local of any other origin to hire and overpay them for their services or lack thereof.
So, please, I know exactly what the situation is like for, say, a Philippino, Egyptian, Pakistani, Bengladeshi, Palestinian, etc, etc compare to, say, an Austrian, or an American or British. In actual fact, while labourers are treated the worse (including by those badly treated architects and engineers from non-westerner countries), the architects and engineers who happen to be not from a "first tier country" suffer a lot of maltreatment, extortion (under the threat of losing their job), you name it.
Mind you, I'm not blaming - nor do I have any hatred for- the westerner architect or engineer in question, not at all. Its not about your person or your incidental place of origin. Its rather about an ugly system that reflects accurately the discrepancies and imbalances in the world comprising the more fortunate areas of the world feeding on the cheap labour, sweat and blood of the world, with the labourers at the lowest rung and others on other rungs. But, please, don't pretend that we are all dictated by the same conditions - that is not true. Some of us are positioned nearer to slavery and others amongst us are positioned nearer positions of power.
Zaha happens to be on the highest rung of her profession and the nearest to power. She is, simultaneously, the freest (in that she is not obliged by circumstance ) and the most responsible (she has the final say, even over and above the client who wants a luxury ZHA building). Claiming that dying on her project due to improper care and safety measures is none of her concern makes her come across as the Cruella of architecture. It doesnt matter how many puppies or humans die as long as she gets her design realized.
i wish edit as follows (additions in italics):
...So, please, I know exactly what the situation is like for, say, a Philippino, Egyptian, Pakistani, Bengladeshi, Palestinian, etc, etc compare to, say, an Austrian, or an American or British. In actual fact, while labourers are treated the worse (including by those badly treated architects and engineers from non-westerner countries), the architects and engineers who happen to be not from a "first tier country" suffer a lot of maltreatment, extortion (under the threat of losing their job), you name it. And usually by someone who are or were themselves maltreated, someone of or closer to their own ilk.
...Mind you, I'm not blaming - nor do I have any hatred for- the westerner architect or engineer in question, not at all. Its not about your person or your incidental place of origin. Its rather about an ugly system that reflects accurately the discrepancies and imbalances in the world comprising the more fortunate areas of the world feeding on the cheap labour, sweat and blood of the world, with the labourers at the lowest rung and others on other rungs. It is also about self-haters, also about a cycle of abuse that runs from the weaker to the weaker still. But mostly, it is about s system that allows this, that leaves the possibility of abuse and neglect unchecked under the guise of productivity and efficiency. I've worked on sites for a few years; I am able to tell that, within harsh and unforgiving conditions, i've met people who abuse their role and their ugliness was on display and, by contrast, i've met people who showed their true metal, their goodness when it was so easy to just be as harsh and unforgiving as the conditions. Labourers are as human as Zaha, maybe she should spend a week carrying masonry blocks and laying them ontop of each other, getting paid barely 200 dollars per month, get shouted at and unfairly treated, sleep with cockroaches and mice scuttering around, so she can appreciate what they do and under what sort of conditions.
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