From the Ground Up is a series on Archinect focused on discovering the early stages & signs of history's most prolific architects. Starting from the beginning allows us to understand the long journey architecture takes, in even the most formative of hands, and the often surprising shifts that occur in its journey. These early projects grant us a glimpse into the early, naive, ambitious, and, at points, rough edges of soon to be architectural masters.
While this month marks the two year anniversary of Zaha Hadid's passing, her name lives on stronger than ever and her image as a symbol and inspiration is only evolving as each day passes.
Zaha Hadid began her remarkable architecture career in the late 1970s, but it would not be until the 1990s that her work would take her remarkable and paradigm shifting drawings and paintings and bring them into the physical and constructed form. The Vitra Fire Station, designed for the factory complex of the same name in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany, was the first of Hadid’s design projects to be ripped from her endless capabilities and brought into reality.
...she used the building to define and structure the street on which it faces. It would also serve to shield the campus from its incongruously traditional, vernacular neighbors.
Hadid was initially tasked only to design the fire station itself but in classic Hadid fashion, the initial goal was only the beginning. The project would eventually expand to include boundary walls, an exercise space, and a bicycle shed. These elements were to sit along a bend in the main road running through the Vitra Campus. The street, and by extension, the new fire station was designed to act as a linear landscaped zone, one that would reference the layout of the surrounding farmland.
It was the road, as well as the factory sheds surrounding the site, that would inform the rationale of Hadid’s proposal. As envisaged by Hadid, the Vitra Fire Station would do more than simply exist as an object in space. Rather, she used the building to define and structure the street on which it faces. It would also serve to shield the campus from its incongruously traditional, vernacular neighbors.
These design intentions resulted in a long, narrow structure that stretched the program along the edge of the street. The building itself is composed of a series of linear concrete walls and roof elements, with the program fitted into the interstitial spaces between them. The walls, which appear as pure planar forms from the outside, are punctured, tilted, or folded in order to meet internal requirements for circulation and other activities. The building’s obliquely intersecting concrete planes, which serve to shape and define the street running through the complex, represent the earliest attempt to translate Hadid’s fantastical, powerful conceptual drawings into a functional architectural space.
In realizing her proposal, the Iraqi-born British architect proved that she was capable of moving past her reputation as a “paper architect” to create architectural space that was as functional as it was radical
Although the Vitra Fire Station would ultimately come to serve a different function than it was originally designed, it nonetheless represents a significant milestone in the career of Zaha Hadid. In realizing her proposal, the Iraqi-born British architect proved that she was capable of moving past her reputation as a “paper architect” to create architectural space that was as functional as it was radical. Though Hadid would spend the next twenty three years producing revolutionary architecture, her Vitra Fire Station remains one of her most notable projects – one that stands out even in Vitra’s assemblage of exceptional architectural projects.
Anthony Morey is a Los Angeles based designer, curator, educator, and lecturer of experimental methods of art, design and architectural biases. Morey concentrates in the formulation and fostering of new modes of disciplinary engagement, public dissemination, and cultural cultivation. Morey is the ...
8 Comments
Anthony,
The "From the Ground Up" series is missing a crucial element in becoming an "architecture master"; a glimpse at the architect's capital. What were the architect's finances like at the time of the profiled project? Where did their wealth originate? How did they pay rent? What was their monthly student loan repayment amount?
Excluding capital from the discussion perpetuates the idea that architecture is open to those with prolific ideas, eclipsing the reality that access to capital is pivotal to becoming a prolific architect.
Donatello, damn, that's on point.
Yes, please add those silver spoons to the equation, just to put it all in perspective for us plebs.
I cannot support or disagree with the preceding comments. But I have observed over the last 15 years that Architects are singularly obsessed with seeing the world only from their perspective - and suffer excessively as a result: Zaha Hadid spent the first ten years of her professional life teaching and consistently losing competitions. The moral of or lesson that should be learned from my "story" is that architects have to accept that there are other non-architectural values that are as equally important in the design mix. Without giving due consideration to "outside" views and values, they will continue to "suffer" at the hands of the market. . . . so . . .
Hmm, nice, but that isn't her first building... She started with a really messed up building:
https://architectureinberlin.w...
This one is even on her official website and on wikipedia, not censored like many other first buildings, so, why the article is not about this one?
The silver spoon does give a person significant advantages, both economic and social.
The rich refer to this as meritocracy.
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