Modern Middle East: Part iii, Performing Arts Centre by Zaha Hadid

When one thinks of Zaha Hadid, the sometimes in-famous architect who is best know for questioning and redefining traditional fundamentals of architecture, one word comes - or should come - to mind: sculptural.  She has designed for The Glasgow Museum in the UK, The Contemporary Arts Center in Rome, The Vitra Fire Station in Germany.  Her buildings (although many not realized) deal with form, abstraction, line, light, function, texture and architectonics in the most unconventional of ways.  She is an art-chitect like no other.  And, I am happy to say, the Performing Arts Center in Abu Dhabi is no exception to these rules. 

I think of it as a smooth, simple organic arm, growing and reaching out into the Gulf, almost swimming or gliding, as though ready to slide right off the islands' edge.  It is so integral with the landscape, and yet somehow, stands alone as a great architectural statement .  The overall form, cellular of sorts, is reflected throughout the entire building, from the windows to the spacial configuration (considering that the concept for the building came from examining basic geometries of plant biology, this comes as no surprise): "a sculptural form that emerges from a linear intersection of pedestrian paths within the cultural district, gradually developing into a growing organism that sprouts a network of successive branches.  As it winds through the site, the architecture increases in complexity, building up height and depth and achieving multiple summits in the bodies housing the performance spaces, which spring from the structure like fruits on a vine and face westward, toward the water."

OH-MY-GOSH.  I feel like I am experiencing poetry-in-motion when I read those words from Hadid herself.

As architects, both my husband (of POSIT studio/dubai) and I tend to examine, with a creatively critical eye, how projects are presented. Put simply, we went gaga over the boards for The Performing Arts Centre: the sections were simply arranged alongside appropriate renderings, the formal concept development was adapted biological mimicry unfolding into refinement, a series of organically developing concept models sit along side each other and some perspective views allow for the imagination to run wild with how one will ultimately experience the spaces.

Zaha Hadid once said "Architecture is really about well-being.  I think that people want to feel good in a space...On the one hand it’s about shelter, but it’s also about pleasure."  Hadid is definitely pushing the boundaries of pleasure for Abu Dhabi with her new vision.  Set to house 5 theaters in total, and possibly an Academy of Performing Arts, I am eagerly awaiting to feed off the fruits of this architectural labor of love.