Zaha Hadid, the world’s best-known female architect, is none too pleased with critics like Jon Stewart, who have mocked her Al Wakrah Stadium—designed with AECOM for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar—and likened her to the “Georgia O’Keeffe of things you can walk inside.”
“It’s really embarrassing that they come up with nonsense like this,” Hadid tells TIME exclusively. “What are they saying? Everything with a hole in it is a vagina? That’s ridiculous.”
— newsfeed.time.com
35 Comments
her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
I actualy agree with her. Stadiums and pusy are very different looking. Stewart clearly dodn't know what he is talking about.
... well most stadiums anyway.
To look at it as a VAGINA is a kind of selective ANTHROPOMORPHISM. Wrote about this already. If you want to see intended (not puns) sex in architecture look over Glen Small's BIOMORPHIC BIOSPHERE renderings. He is the only architect that I know or seen that has rendered naked people in his presentations. It's a literal EROS and Civilization pictured as William Reich would conceive (pun intended).
Giggling over phallus and vagina shaped buildings just shows how lame and sexless architects are today. Or as my frustrated friend says."I just keep it to myself"
Someone on Jezebel called it the vaginarena. So it shall be know henceforth.
The bulging parts around the opening look like swirling testacles though...just sayinh
Giggling over phallus and vagina shaped buildings just shows how lame and sexless architects are today.
I agree. Most architects are indeed lame, especially when they have an index finger placed at their chins feigning discernment when evaluating a project or touring a building.
As for buildings resembling genitalia, I can only think of one and the resemblance is uncanny: Seattle's Gateway Tower (now the Municipal Tower) as viewed from the harbor side is too phallic and I'm surprised that, upon modeling it, no one brought that up. In that case, it's downright ridiculous.
However, some buildings can be equated to objects: one particular high-rise in Denver with a curved top does indeed look like an electric razor, Lake Point Tower in Chicago sort of reminds me of a clover leaf, in plan, and Mike Brady's headquarters for a cosmetics company looks more like what picked up E.T. at the end of that movie more so than the powder puff it was intended to be. I find comparisons to objects more interesting.
^^ To me, the swirling parts look like breast implant bags that people are tossing around and happened to land in a particular position, and then the "mirror" command was invoked. However, I don't see the structure as that sexual. Since it doesn't rain in that part of the world, why is there are cover for the seating areas, unless the UV rays are over the top?
It sure is not a way to get many gay men to get over disliking sports.
Then again, it could well be the most gigantic feminist statement ever. The Vagina that swallowed up the masses of hollering red hot blooded men. Does the ground open up to display gnashing teeth? Reminds me of that adorable film about a coming-into-her-own girl whose vagina is lined with sharp teeth...and you know what happens when she gets angry
I also agree with one of the other commenters over at Jezebel who said she wished Zaha hadn't rejected this idea so strongly. I, too, wish she had just shrugged it off and said "So what if it does?"
>Observe. I too like buildings (and things) that resemble other things. Accidental resemblances are more like open metaphors and less ONOMATOPOETIC. ie hot dog stand in shape of a hot dog. Didnt Ledoux do a House of Pleasure with the floor plan the shape of a dick?
Have you noticed that much of women's cosmetic cases resemble architecture parts in minature? Architectures resembling women's parts.; women's make-up things resembling architecture.. Hmm... a secret connect?
I said once and I will say it again...
I like Georgia O'keeffe´s paintings. and I like that stadium. I especially like that it was rendered in a purpulish/pinkish colour. I do not find it offensive that it looks like female anatomy. How many skyscrapers look phallic?
A few things to note it was rendered without the masterplan and nobody would see that stadium from above unless you are in a helicopter. Looks like it would have an elegant entrace. Its a shame ZHA did not realease the renderings from the ground view, from that point it does not look like vag. and makes quite a nice canteliver when entering upon the stadium.
When building form no longer reflects a nameable archetype, then this kind of association becomes inevitable. When you design a stadium that people can't look at and say, "that looks like a stadium", you have no right to be irritated that people think your building looks like a vagina.
>Observe. I too like buildings (and things) that resemble other things. Accidental resemblances are more like open metaphors and less ONOMATOPOETIC.
On buildings, onomatopoetic is indeed bad and too kitsch ... i.e. donuts and hot dogs. For some words, though, it's great. The verb "schlep," adopted into American lexicon, sounds exactly like what it is, and is more efficient that saying "having to drag my ass to" (name of place).
“Honestly, if a guy had done this project,” she adds, critics would not be making such lewd comparisons.
Everything has to be a sexism battle for her doesn't it. She couldn't just laugh it off, that would destroy her reputation as the WORLDS BEST DESIGNER
i dunno, it looks like a turkey with the drumsticks attached, and it's breast split open. an uncooked butterball.
If the visualization is incompltete, just imagine some hair on it.
I showed this too a non-architect friend (yes I have some). He said "if that's a vagina your'e gonna need a H-HUUU-G-GGGE ONE to fill that stadium. Does that make the 50,000 plus spectators sperm?
^
No, it makes them tadpoles. When I first took HS biology, I thought sperm looked like tadpoles. That opinion hasn't changed.
i wonder what happened to the scale model...
Surprised this one, from the Beijing stadium competition, hasn't resurfaced yet in all this discussion of Freud meets architecture...
This is not a vagina obviously (not that I would know...). Its a father's eye socket after the son had viciously torn out its eyeball to stop daddy from ogling mommy. Obviously nothing freudian in that!
Its all about context
http://famousarchitect.blogspot.no/2013/12/95-accidental-femminist.html
13/12/95-accidental-femminist.html
there is something wrong with the article and the image.
it isn't merely zaha who worked with gadafi's and qatar's regimes. everyone and their uncle worked with them. zaha is equally as "guilty" in that sense. no one bothered to collage their image with their building like penises.
did the person who make this image ask permission from zaha hadid first and get it? i assume not. in which case, i assume that they have taken advantage of her image and manipulated it to their end.
which means that, in the name of a so-called feminism (that is an exaggerated pathological direct outcome of sexism -other side of its coin-and not an actual independent feminism that respects women's/people's individual images and bodies), she's being abused by being collaged into an image that - i strongly believe- would contradict with her wishes.
the author and fabricator of the image fall into the same hole -truly no puns here- that this image is employed to counter.
furthermore, there is a strong suggestion that this is was taken from some terrorist attack/military zone - perhaps in iraq. the inversion of victims into suggested violators now being violated by a vagina is completely tasteless.
everyone in this image is being used for a single minded purpose trampling on quite a few people - inverting them for its own whimsical and perverse end.
If you witness 3 kids steeling candy from a store and you did't say anything and later on you see yet another kid steeling a bicycle from the same store. You had enough and you go over to the the kid and say "Hey, don't steal that Bicycle, it is wrong!" and the kid says "but you didn't say anything to the other kids steeling candy, so you can't say anything to me"
My question who is right, you or the kid?
The same question here, since no one drew a collage of any of the other architects that worked for Gaddafi, does that make it wrong to criticize Zaha for being complicit in glamorizing Gaddafi and all the violence his regime created in the streets of Libya?
Is it wrong to make an image that associates Zaha with the violence of the regime that she is indeed complicit in camouflaging?
As the article points out, thousands of women in Qatar are being imprisoned and exploited by the regime that Zaha is now helping to camouflage as a progressive society with her stadium. But as you also point out Zaha is also being exploited by this image, I can't imagine how terrible it must be to be exploited in such a tasteless way?
nothing wrong in criticizing oguard (i forsaw your argument and i can see your point) ; however, for the reasons above, i believe that manipulating her image as a woman (ie using her womanhood) as a tool of criticism carries with it other messages. and so does the image of people fleeing from her - inversing them from being victims of some military strike or terrorism attack and generalizing them as men who deserve to be eaten by her vagina. i believe this is a misogynistic collage.
t> completely tasteless.
No taste intended. Except the sourness of Sarcasm. Right on top as to description, The result the photo-collage-maker did an old fashion big F**K U to everyone. Very punk, I dont care about you F**K YOU!
Tammuz and I guess this applies to you also Eric,
There is a reply waiting for you on the blog:
http://famousarchitect.blogspot.com/2013/12/96-accidental-femminist-part-2.html
Thank you for your reply, Conrad. I hope you also publish the below.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
Some statements of yours:
I am not singling out Zaha because she is a woman. I have targeted quite a few other starchitects for criticism before.
… but no one bothered to ask why I didn’t criticize any disingenuous female architects
…but no one bothered to ask why I didn't criticize any female architects who were not as rigorous too?
…but no one bothered to say "if it was a female starchitect they wouldn’t have depicted her body in such a perverse way to make a point. It’s just because he is a man!"
………………………………………………………………………………………….
That you singled her out is irrelevant. That you chose men before and not women is irrelevant (to me). That you didn’t replace men with women is irrelevant to me. That you choose to focus on a man-architect masturbates and not a woman is irrelevant to me. I only noticed this one Zaha collage of yours posted on Archinect and I didn’t have an idea of your previous work beforehand. So, really, the statements you make (cited above) are besides-the-point.
To begin with, you singled out the womanhood (something that in my mind should be her ownership) in her and targeted/used her through it. However, you played with the architect-boys on very different terms. Rem Koolhaas does not really have the number of exaggerated boobs you show and none of the architect-babies shown are in reality infantile. The message pertains really solely to their standing within the profession and cult of architecture and not to their person or bodies. On the other hand, Zaha Hadid is a woman and has ‘one of her own’ already. You choose to take the stadium project that has been compared to a vagina and force it on her image, placing her in a monstrously sexual position. The time that you take a woman as a subject, you immediately revert to a sexual cliché – the domineering man-eating woman. The message here that strikes one first is not read metaphorically – it is read pornographically ie sexually self-referential even if this is but the intermediate bridge to your ultimate message. In other words, the message stalls at the image of the now deformed body of Zaha Hadid hunting down men. Sorry but that is far more of a rude, misogynistic and personal caricaturing of her than in the Rem caricature. You deform Rem’s body to communicate a message that has nothing to do with his body; his caricatured body is ultimately analogical communicating a message situated from away from the literalism of the image. Not so with Zaha; her personal womanhood overlaps with your ultimate message and that obscures your political message and turns it within itself, trapped in horror-porno solipsism.
So, yes, I am concerned with this excess – or framework- of meaning explained above (hopefully clearly) that carries with it the misogyny that – I gather- has been noticed, one way or the other, by others. You yourself mention your
This is testament to the highly patriarchal society in which women make up only 1/4 of the population and are diminished in power. If they feel it is necessary to incarcerate and suppress women in their society in such a radical way, one can only conclude that they are afraid of them.
Now, in terms of women in Qatar and generally GCC, I agree that they don’t have equal rights and so on. But, I have a strong feeling – as a person who originates from the so called Middle East area and who has lived in a few GCC countries, from the strictest of the lot to the most liberal- that your perception on the society and the issue of woman rights is warped, clichéd and hyped to the point where it would be distasteful to men and women alike in the region. (In fact, and simply as a besides-the-point remark on my part: if you cared at all about arab women’s and men’s sensibilities, you would not be showing (albeit fake) their genitals or in compromising situations). Qatar and the Emirates –for instance- have actually made quite significant strides in terms of women’s access to the workforce and suchlike. Saudi Arabia, however, has not and hoards of problems that that country has. Bahrain’s main problem is now sectarian – much more so than in relation to women-rights front. In fact, it might be better to be a sunni Bahraini woman now than a Shiite Bahraini man.
Yes, there are problems and yes, I believe that change must be encouraged. But not in such a manner. Why do all the men in your collage deserve to be eaten? What is this vitriolic generalization? In reality, not only is the image misogynistic in sexist terms, it is also so in racist terms. Your second message is: All these Qatari(arab) men are going to be (therefore deserve to be) eaten because they imprison their women counterparts.
You prove to have a very non-contextual, external point of view on the topic. This is not criticism; you are merely balking at the imagined generalized myth and coming up with something that expresses antipathy on the basis of ignorance. Can you imagine, for instance, that there are indeed many many many Qatari women (and I know quite a representative few) who are very happy and content in their lives in Qatar? Many of them very much like being housewives. Others are out, making great progress in their work environment. Let them speak for themselves – do no usurp them as well in your representations.
As for Gadafi. When I said that many did business with him – I did not mean architects. Insignificant. I meant politicians and leaders– probably yours as well. The same people who later turned on him because they saw it was good to go and topple him in Libya – not out of concern with the people there who had been living under Gadafi – but to gain certain privileges in Libya and elsewhere by way of his removal. What happened to –what is happening now to Libya is tragic, far more tragic than the situation under Gadafi. You have no clue whatsoever about the US/NATO overt and covert operations in the country and you have no clue about the context. You are fed biased media bytes and on the basis of that you build up a collaged effigy of false-knowledge/ignorance. Please do yourself a favour and watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKDai3LPgtI
In actual fact, if you want to address the head of the serpent, the one that keeps the countries in the middle east in the dark ages, encouraged religious fundamentalism and decreases the likelihood of women gaining their rights – look to the colonialist powers, to the great puppeteers. Gadafi was generally bad to all his people – but he was equally bad to women. He was not a religious fundamentalist. The encouragement of fundamentalism on the part of US and NATO to counter any independent, liberal and progressive movements in the middle east is far far more detrimental than Gadafi. Go target the snake’s head, instead of reverting to racist (and sexist) clichés and picking out the easy targets…if you dare.
All the best and apologies if I didn’t spend enough time editing the above. Please accept this in the spirit of constructive criticism.
By the way,I posted the above in thre parts on your website. Didn't accept the whole chunk.
lastly, please do not confuse my criticism of your stance with a defense of Gulf arab regimes. I have a great great disliking for them. They are part of the problem for why the greater MENA region is now up in flames, hand in hand with NATO and the US. But we must identify exactly what needs to be criticized and how....
You would think if it's for the world CUP...that she would have made it look more sack-like.
Now, lets all review our reactions based on this:
The way in which any given culture treats the vagina — whether with respect or disrespect, caringly or disparagingly — is a metaphor for how women in general in that place and time are treated.
Why is this thread getting so much mileage? It's not like it's a landmark structure in world architecture and one any of us will see. I've already forgotten the (Calatrava) stuff for the 2004 Olympics in Athens (sad that Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics, couldn't get their act together to host them in 2000, making 2004 seem so also-ran).
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