"I have nothing to do with the workers," said Hadid. "I think that's an issue the government – if there's a problem – should pick up. Hopefully, these things will be resolved."
Asked if she was concerned, Hadid added: "Yes, but I'm more concerned about the deaths in Iraq as well, so what do I do about that? I'm not taking it lightly but I think it's for the government to look to take care of. It's not my duty as an architect to look at it.
— theguardian.com
35 Comments
In the immortal words of a world-recognized leader of her profession:
so what do I do about that?
...
One of the coldest and apathetic responses I have ever heard. FIFA should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this travesty of an event to continue.
So she is trying to partition her duty as a person from her duty as an architect. I imagine that is what most people who operate at a certain level of society must do in order to function. I'm not sure exactly what I would do if I were in her shoes. She could have at least offered a stronger critique. Nobody expects her to quit the project. I hope she apologizes for her remarks and actually says something that shows she is not taking the news of these deaths lightly.
she has nothing to do with that , that was such a stupid question from the journalist, the workers die because they don't follow the safety
She is always so defensive all the time. Rather than pointing out that the deaths weren't her fault, couldn't she express some condolences which is what a normal human being would do?
She asks why people criticize her and her work so much, its because she makes big-shot comments like that all the time. If she had any sort of humbleness, she would invite much less criticism.
I rather like her work's sculptural qualities and feel sympathy for the ethical fallacy that she's expressing in her own way, but expressing condolences would necessitate empathy. Seeing an issue from the other's perspectives is not what a polemicists would freely admit to. And humility, an essential component of empathy, equates to weakness unfortunatley, so that is also very unlikely. At least she's honest about these issues, unlike her esoteric partner.
i am sure zaha hadid is horrified at the number of deaths that have occurred at these job sites. but with that said, she is absolutely correct architects are not responsible for job site safety and if architects become involved, even by commenting as to what should be done to remedy the situation, then the architect opens him/herself to liability claims.
i believe british architects use contracts and general conditions contracts similar to those used by the AIA. before condemning her comments it might be of some value to review Article 10 of A201 General Conditions of the Contract for Construction.
The liability fear is bullshit. Zaha is afraid of pissing off the people who gave her the commission. She doesn't want to lose potential repeat business, no matter how dirty it is.
actually the contractor is responsible. of course, the government may be the contractor i have no clue. miles, i am just pointing out what the AIA contracts read. Your comments may be absolutely true.
Both comments can be true simultaneously: the architect is not, contractually (at least according to AIA documents) responsible for jobsite safety, and the architect as a professional (per the AIA Code of Ethics, at least) and a human is responsible for acting with integrity in all professional dealings. I think an easy argument can be made that if an architect has integrity they will not engage in projects that incorporate slave labor OR any other violation of the laws, especially human rights violations, of their (the architect's) home country or the country where the work is taking place.
I respect Zaha and much of her work but I don't respect this weak response at all.
Edited to add: I understand that Zaha is not held to the AIA's code as I doubt she's an AIA member OR registered in the US at all; I'm citing the AIA as an example that may be similar to those that architects in other countries are held to.
Ugh, can we stop playing the architect gotcha game. Calatrava, Zaha and G all have targets on them because of their unfortunate choice to build memorable buildings.
A lot of people died to build the skyscrapers of NYC, the great wall of china, the colosseum (and many more died inside). It's easy for the media to go after personalities rather than faceless corporate firms or better yet, the banks, politicians, construction companies and developers who are responsible.
She gave a good reply to a provocateur. There are hundreds of staff and workers related to any building site, Team leaders are surely concerned about safety issues but it usually is not a collective responsibility. If the point is to discuss slave labour, it should be addressed to the FIFA who granted the games and did not make clear this issue to the Qatar government.
In reality, what do you think she can do? I think I'm on the same page as hers on this. It's already been awarded and the construction has commenced. So what to do? Talk to the government and stuff? I think people are asking too much from Zaha. Give her a break, I believe most would do the same if they're in her shoes. There's such a thing as a separation of the profession and politics.
With that in mind, I believe she could politely open up the situation in her next commissions whenever offered by the same entity. Or maybe she can decline the next time because of the way the government handled the situation. But now, I don't think she can do anything about it really.
But it is our duty to speak out against unnecessary human-enslavement for profit.
To agree with Stephen Hawking, a boycott of Israel's Genocide/Occupation/Apartheid currently funded by US&UK tax base.
Architects cannot play ignorant forever- This is a line in the sand, if you see it, put your foot down.
Zaha, repeat after me:
"Of course we were shocked and dismayed by the number of deaths being reported. I have been in contact with my client's representatives, and have strongly conveyed our concerns over these reports. They have assured me that they are pursing the matter and will be doing everything necessary to increase worker safety."
All she had to do to demonstrate some concern and dispel her culpability was make a call. In that call there's no need to confront them over unethical treatment of labor, just underscore for them that the negative publicity compromises their own self interests. They give assurances they'll take a look at it, Zaha responds with complete confidence that the matter will be resolved. Zaha has her response for the media. Everything dies down, unless there are future follow-up reports that are incriminating enough to be news worthy...
But if she actually wanted to send a signal, she'd do a well-announced-ahead-of-time site visit. She's a superstar, she'd be Angelina touring in Africa. Before she lands shit's gonna be sorted out and made presentable.
It's not a responsibility issue from the point of view of the professional contract. We all know Zaha is not at fault there. It's the fact that she comes off as a total bitch by the way she shrugs off the deaths of hundreds of people. She is correct in saying that it is not her responsibility, but when I say that I hate my boss to their face I may be speaking the truth but I should still find a better way of wording it.
Truth is, if one is Aware, then one is Responsible to speak out and have some moral gumption.
Its amazing to see such PC responses here. We all know how zaha treats her employees, what the fuck does she care if 800 people die? Cant expect her to have any sympathy.
Of course, it is not an issue about professional conduct with AIA, or RIBA regulations.
Her demeanor makes me think that she actually, really does not care at all, as long as her architecture gets built in some form.
Architecture is a political statement, and its our duty to at least acknowledge that.
"A lot of people died to build the skyscrapers of NYC, the great wall of china, the colosseum "
What are you saying, Peyton? Are you suggesting we are still in the 1600s? If so, there are a few other social tenets we can bring back.
I think its a terrible answer, but on other hand shes just refusing to be a hypocrite. Her answer was not pablum like we always get, but the truth. If she gave off with the expected answer am sure the above comments would still be the same, except with more name calling and more bullshit about how swoopy architecture is not worth building and similar rubbish...
I think, given the tone of this article, and given that she has a history of dealing with sketchy regimes, does it not seem like a good question, given that she does create work in, and for, countries that by their very nature, have zero interest in human rights, and deliberately court, or deal with slave labor?? I mean is this really that much of a stretch here? I don't care about her insensitivity...
The Olympics are architectural tsunamis. The Olympic committee should get all participating nations to chip In and build one permanent neutral place for the games to be held. Possibly can be in Greece where it all began. We don't need to raze entire towns every couple years.
Sure we do. It's called progress. Also know as pump and dump.
Of course she has a role to play. She can choose to desist from benifitting from-as well as supporting- the conditions that lead to the miserable labour conditions. Boiling it down to contractual wordings is disingenious. She has the authority to back this humanitarian cause and she even has the priviledge and luxury to pick and choose her projects. The real culprit here is the qatari government. Zaha serves it uncritically although it is responsible for the death of an inordinate number of labourers by allowing contractors to treat their workers as slaves . That makes her an acquiescent second-order accomplice. Its far worse than buying an ipad mini (chinese slave-workers).
Yes, exactly she has a record of working to produce work within the context of bad regimes....like in the US.
Zaha, queen bee of neoliberal architects
Or is Zaha's vulvadium the 'international community's R2P bomb on qatar? Dear stupid, selfish, pretentious, lying, US-anal licking 'international community', please accept this as yyour queue to topple the qatari leadership (again)...kindly rape it, terrorize it, kill its citizenry, demolish it....as you tell your own citizens about it being in the name of fucking Human Rights (give me genghis khan over this)....but make sure to go after the Saudi regime...then the Turkish, the French and the Israeli....then please go after la maison blanche's morgan freeman and the democrats and republicans.
If we track the manufacturing processes of most building materials we will likely find some form of slave labor and environmental degradation. The act of building is often destructive for someone somewhere. Most of us however are separated from the injustice by several degrees. We are more removed and thus feel less guilty. Zaha is more directly linked to this tragedy. She is truly and accomplice. Not sure how far removed one must be to be innocent though, or if any linkage to injustice, even if far removed from our sight/control, render us accomplices....I find her attitude repulsive but I can't help to see that she is far from the only architect contributing to such things.
Vulvadium - nice one, tammuz.
Should we all just hold out to work in Sweden? This guilt by association goes a little far. By any measure, every regime in history abused human rights, even those enlightened Renaissance republics of northern Italy. Does that make all the work done with-in these contexts morally reprehensible? Her only fault was her inability to see those who died as fellow humans, and recognize that they will be missed horribly by thier loved ones. All she had to do is give her condolances rather than try to absolve herself in the court of progressive righteousness. As for all the neo-liberal clap trap, this has been and always will be, greed.
But architects save lives, just think of that, think of all the lives she has saved by calling out fireproofing on her drawings for instance. Probably thousands.
if architecture is a political act, shouldn't you being saying zaha and the client that's actually making the statement are responsible? surely the architect alone isn't responsible for someone else's political act? it was the Qatar 2022 committee that chose a contractor that couldn't maintain safety standards, not zaha, right?
if this was some sort of design-build scenario, and ZHA chose to form a relationship with the contractor, or if ZHA is the contractor building the building, then i would think zaha would have more responsibility towards fixing the problem. if that were the case, i would expect her to end the relationship her firm has with that contractor. if it's a more conventional design-bid-build type project, where the owner has separate contracts with the architect and contractor, then there isn't much she can do. of course, a bit of empathy should come through whether there is anything she can do about the safety conditions or not.
contractors are responsible for means an methods. thanks tint for so clearly illustrating why exposure to the actual profession is so important. we don't want a bunch of interns telling contractors how to do their job.
I have worked in the gulf area for around 6years and I can state that I am not content with the working and financial situation of the construction labour force and other sectors (for example, taxi drivers in Abu Dhabi are virtually enslaved and sooner or later find that the benefits are outweighed by the degrading levels of their health) . The reality is that the gulf arab labour force -as with chinese, bengladeshi and other factory workers - arevthe flip side of providing maximum profit to the providers (be they the qatari goverment via the prestige of the games or Apple or clothing industry worlwide) with minimum expenditure. Discounting the role of neoliberal globalism and and what it invites in terms of enslavement of the poor by the rich (which is now cross national) would be naive and myopic. So although yes I, for my own person, see the second order guilt on the part of zaha, the guilt also extends to those who participate in the games ...whether as active participants or viewers. It would be hypocritical to assign blame to the qatari government and thrreafter architects and contractors and leave out the consuming end which, while having the luxury of condemning the human rights violations will also, hypocritically, have the luxury of participating in those games. As an instance of how this also translates to yet another level of political hypocricy, we see how the US quasiofficially uses the gay right issue in the Sotchi games as a soft power tool against Russia (and if you believe this is really only about gay rights and not yet another geopolitical tool, you would be naive) while the US is exerting little influence over it client state Qatar (one of many in the region). It is a very sad time in our history when Human Rights have been usurped as yet another power struggle tool. Furthermore, although yes Zaha is to blame for accepting to work for the qatari regime (which, aside from the labourer issue, is a nondemocratic regressive pro-muslim-brotherhood regime that has participated in the destabilization of Syria for religiously fascistic and other such suspect reasons), you, the viewer of the world cup would be also assigned a share of the blame. In the open market, guilt is equally free to propogate from the producer to the consumer, one cross national end of the bourgeoisie to the other.
knowledge -> power -> influence -> change
unfortunately when the knowledge is being disregarded and the power of influence is being restrained we can never achieve change
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