PART 2 CAR PARK & TERMINUS HOENHEIM-NORD vs THE MONUMENT TO THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
ZAHA HADID: BUILDING ON A CONSTRUCTIVIST PAST
I will be comparing two buildings from opposing paradigms: the Car Park and Terminus Hoenheim-Nord in Strasbourg France, and The Monument to the Third International, proposed for St. Petersburg, Russia. By comparing Zaha Hadid to the constructivist Vladmir Tatlin, we see how a contemporary architecture was able to absorb a previous tradition and create a new architecture- with new ideals and results . Both projects apply a form of three dimensional cubist theory to architectural forms in order to achieve dynamic effect.
As a point of departure from modernism, Hadid incorporates many distinct constructivist elements into her aesthetic. The previous sociopolitical aspects of the constructivist argument manifest as contemporary goals of community, continuity, and iconicism. Many of Hadid’s school projects and early built works are derivative of constructivist (Merriam-Webster
Dictionary defines ‘Constructivism’ as a nonobjective art movement
originating in Russia and concerned with formal organization of
planes and expression of volume in terms of modern industrial
materials (as glass and plastic).) theory. Early in Hadid’s career, while building relatively few buildings, she was able to synthesize the concepts and formal logic of constructivism into a dynamic architecture of connectivity, continuity, and tectonic shifts.
TATLIN’S TOWER/ THE MONUMENT TO THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL
Intended for construction in St. Petersburg in 1918, The Monument to the Third International (Tatlin’s Tower) is a significant constructivist work by Moscow painter and architect, Vladimir Tatlin. The building consists of a spiraling superstructure, within which three volumes are suspended. Each volume is an independent programmatic enclosure- a cube shaped conference hall, admin offices enclosed within a pyramidal form, and a cylindrical information center. Not only does the composition of the superstructure evoke movement, the individual programmatic elements move within the building itself. The conference hall rotates a full circle once per year, the admin offices once a month, and the cylinder once per day. The differentiated speed of rotation corresponds to the activity of each space.
The ideas of motion and asymmetry were directly translated into the built form of the massive, four hundred meter superstructure tower, the iconic spiral uniting the building into a unified whole, encasing individual parts (each with their own rate of change within the building). The structure appears to be spiraling off into an unmeasurable trajectory, yet retains a tensile gravitational relationship to the site.
The Monument to the Third International epitomized the Constructivist desire to use raw, industrial objects to create architectural form- in this project they consist of raw iron, glass and steel.
Although conceptually inspiring, The Monument to the Third International may have been impossible to construct with the materials and technology of 1918. Fulfilling the monumental purpose of the structure, “Tatlin’s tower [evoked] a utopian scaffolding that resembled a future ruin, an avant-garde monument that inspired architecture of dissident.” (Boym, Svetlana. Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea) Perhaps this dissident spirit is something that Hadid- an Iraqi woman in the United Kingdom- was able to identify with, starting off her career as a ‘paper architect’ with little built work.
CAR PARK & TERMINUS HOENHEIM NORD- STRASBOURG FRANCE
Built in 2001 as the terminal station for a low-floor tram system in Strasbourg, France. Located on a desolate suburban site, the terminus weaves together transportation modes into a fluid node of transition. Combining basic materials (concrete, asphalt, steel) in a evokative study of ‘magnetic fields’, a kind of abstraction of paths of motion on site. Only her second significant work (since the Vitra fire station), the Car Park & Terminus Hoenheim-Nord still shows clearly traces of Hadid’s early studies of constructivism.
The constant motion to and from the inter-modal transit node at various velocities and trajectories became the architectural solution- an urban form which realigns movement into converging paths. The asymmetric, angular forms of the terminus building evoke visual perspectives which reinforce the paths of motion, and tie together the whole site. “The overall concept is based on overlapping fields and lines that knit together to form a constantly shifting whole. Those ‘fields’ are the patterns of movement engendered by cars, trams, bicycles and pedestrians. Each has a trajectory and a trace, as well as a static fixture. It is as though the transition between transport types (car to tram, train to tram) is rendered as the material and spatial transitions of the station, the landscaping and the context.” (From
the project description of the Car Park / Terminus Hoenheim Nord in
Strasbourg, France. ZHA)
The terminus and car park are united by a minimal material palette- concrete, asphalt, and steel members (Hadid’s
subdued material palette is not unlike the Constructivists raw industrial material choices.). The distorted field of the car park bleeds onto the terminus structure, appearing as fluorescent strips, openings in the concrete plane, and dramatically cantilevering benches. The XY field is reinforced in the Z axis by the angled light poles, which form a metaphysical extension of the folded roof plane.
Because of the large site incorporating disparate programmatic functions, Zaha created a uniting organization that was able to absorb the car park into the terminus building, and uniting the suburban car commuter to the city’s tramways and buses.
Precedent in previous conceptual projects by Hadid led to an analogue design process, a drawing practice based on large-format paintings and fragmented overlapping plans and diagrams.
FORGING FORWARD WITH PIECES OF PAST PARADIGMS
Replacing dreams of communist ideal cities and lavish architecture of power, Hadid uses constructivist forms, themes, and even drawing practice- substituting contemporary architectural fetishes of dynamic form, and democratic convergence of traffic. This symbiosis of architectural ideologies is less insurgent than Constructivism, but equally avant-garde.
Lebbeus Woods observed that “Hadid’s work of the 80s was paradoxical. From one perspective, it seemed to be a post-modern effort to strike out in a new direction by appropriating the tectonic languages of an earlier epoch—notably Russian avant-garde at the time of the Revolution—but in a purely visual, imagistic way: the political and social baggage had been discarded. This gave her work an uncanny effect. The drawings and architecture they depicted were powerfully asserting something, but just what the something was, in traditional terms, was unclear.” (Lebbeus
Woods Online Journal, from an analysis of “Zaha Hadid’s Drawings,
Part 1”.)
Like magnetic fields of theoretical influence, Hadid’s architecture synthesizes site variables into particulates that directly influence the design, and therefore presents a seamless integration into the urban fabric of Strasbourg.
Aesthetically, both projects use asymmetrical forms and angular shapes, columns to create a sense of frozen motion, a connection to the earth while also consciously peeling away from it. While the Monument to the Third International literally rotates, Hadid’s Car Park & Terminus Hoenheim-Nord harnesses the pulsating urban movements of the city into a continuum of overlapping planes. Both projects take disparate elements and blend them into a bold, iconic form- freezing movement in time. At the same time being pulled to earth, and projecting out from it. The dynamic effect of form presented in both structures makes them compelling and enduring (The
Monument to the Third International remains a compelling source of
inspiration to this day) urban objects.
See Part 1 of this article.
