Death of a Starchitect - Dame Zaha Hadid

THE SERIOUS STUFF

I just learned of Zaha Hadid's death about ten minutes ago.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/mar/31/star-architect-zaha-hadid-dies-aged-65

What impact she had on the architectural world is immeasurable, though I'm certain in the days to come there will be many out in force attempting to do so. I confess, her architectural designs interest me less than her approach to life and practice. I admire her audacity, her unapologetic and uncensored personality - the Queen Bitch that some loudly deride but many secretly (or not-so-secretly) want to be. And to be a woman and an Arab woman at that in this profession - such incredible will.

An obituary (like the article linked above) is by its nature somewhat bland and matter-of-fact. I rather think this profile from a few years ago is more appropriate to someone so much larger-than-life as Hadid:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/08/zaha-hadid-serpentine-sackler-profile

MAKING IT WEIRD

Brief Ode to the Death of a Quirky Masterpiece

Hat tip to the Chicago Architecture Blog for this time-lapse gif of Prentice being demolished.

(Photos in gif from Dr. Robert L Vogelzang, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine)

Perfect is the Enemy

There has been almost 6 months of silence on the blog. Certainly this is not because nothing significant has occurred since December, and we have no lack of opinions on various events and news items since 2013 came to a close.

But once again, I've fallen into the trap of letting perfection get in the way of getting things done. (I place no blame on my co-editor, who has been busy with school!) There are more than 20 drafts of posts waiting in the wings, waiting for me to develop and polish and (needlessly) fret about accuracy, sources, photos, sketches. Waiting for perfection.

Perfection isn't coming. Perfection is too remote and aloof, too ethereal. And Good, (or worse, Good Enough) is shunned for "lack of follow-through." "Not committed." "Underdeveloped." "Rough."

Think of an empty page, and how intimidating it can be. What to write? Draw? Design? As an empty page, it is limitless possibility. It is in the realm of Perfection which is, alas, never to touch our own earthly one. The moment that paper bears a mark - ink, graphite, a fold, a cut - it has lost that unearthly aura of Perfection and is now merely Real.

But Real has a great deal to recommend it. Real is tangible. Real can be examined, critiqued, improved, deconstructed, displayed, built, published. Real can permit Failure to evolve into Success (or sometimes, new and different Failure). Real can extend the path from Good to Better.

So there may be some unpolished posts coming up in the next few months. So what? We'll have content. And the polish will come with the habit of making things Real.

An architect's resolutions for the new year.

It's easy to lose track of the fundamentals when one is working on the daily grind of shop drawings, change orders, field reports, and plumbing schedules.  I'd like to step back from the chaos of real life practice for a moment to make six resolutions that I hope will help improve myself as an architect and a person in the coming year.

Better Late Than Never, I Guess: The AIA Gold Medal Award

The AIA Gold Medal, the highest award of the American Institute of Architects, has been awarded posthumously to Julia Morgan for 2014.

Morgan is the first woman architect to receive this award from the AIA - an award that has been in existence since 1907.  It's taken 107 years for the AIA to award the Gold Medal to a woman architect.  Let me repeat that:  it's taken 107 years for the AIA to award the Gold Medal to a woman architect.

Community and Diversity: A Dialogue

In response to this article at Atlantic Cities called "The Paradox of Diverse Communities", my fellow editor-architect onymously and I had a discussion/hashing out of ideas/questioning session via email that I think really helps illustrate the architect's lens of seeing the world.

The Fountainhead, revisited.

Following up on this post about The Fountainhead film, I started wondering how the story would be reinterpreted in the hands of a contemporary (or nearly) director.

• John Waters' The Fountainhead, with bonus smell-o-vision!  
• Spike Lee's "The Fountainhead: A Spike Lee Joint."
• Pixar's The Fountainhead, in which Roark is not an architect at all but instead a modern building trying to get established in a neo-classical city.  Dominique is a flirty and flaky piece of marble.