I was at a friend's place and saw a copy of Times special Edition or Newsweek, can't remember, since I never buy those magazines...
Anyways, in it was a list of the most influential people and one of them was Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi architect. She is known world wide, has received many prizes, and a simple google of her name will give you more information on her designs and the concepts behind them...
I am no architect, but I love architecture...and Zaha Hadid, in spite, despite her "brilliance", is not on my favorites list..
Even though she claims to be influenced by Islamic architecture and its fluidity, she calls herself a
''deconstructivist", in a landscape of urban oppression, she likes to think of her designs as bringing form...
Frankly -- for me, her designs are too futuristic, too modern, too divorced from the Spirit of Fluidity...this does not mean that they are not outstanding in themselves...but they remind me too much of a Lost Modernity in search of a Soul....and Zaha is still searching....
I am -- what would one call that in architectural language ? -- no clue. Maybe I am a traditionalist, when it comes to architecture...meaning I am very strongly inclined towards roundness, domes, arcades, patios --- more of the Feminine elements, Feminine aspects....of "Creation"
Anything that is too modern I find terribly cold and oppressive...whether it is in interior design or actual architectural designs....
I can't stand modern furniture, modern insides, minimalists.... they feel like a grave, a tomb to me...they feel sterile, oppressive, antisepticized, devoid of life...devoid of paradoxes...of opposites, of contrasts, of duality...
I don't like this futuristic vision, maybe because I feel that people have not grappled with either their past or their present...so they project themselves into a future where they hope to breathe...
I am a fanatic of Islamic architecture -- well this is what they call it...don't get allergies now.
I am absolutely wondrous at the interplay of light and shade, of roundness and verticality, at the way the designs ensure a flow of air and energy...
I am allergic to skyscrapers, tall buildings, metal and chrome - I feel they are all an insult to God...like a huge Phallus pointing to the sky...
This is ONE of the reasons I detested New York. I felt oppressed, suffocated, with all these erected buildings...buildings of human might and power, human power that a tiny microscopic virus, bacteria can finish off....I like that image of a tiny minuscule living organism finishing off a giant...
If I really have to choose between a Zaha Hadid and a Hassan Fathy, or one of his contemporaries, I would opt for the latter any time...
Conclusion : Zaha Hadid has NOT influenced me one bit...besides, her designing the Iraqi Embassy in DC, post 2003, post invasion, will leave a bad taste in my mouth for ever....
Now that's what I call being politically correct !
