zaha 1 interview

8/3/2019 Zaha 1 Interview

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Architect, The Contemporary Arts Center

Question: What attracted you most to the project of designing

The Contemporary Arts Center?

Zaha Hadid: What is exciting about The Contemporary Arts

Center project is the degree of unpredictability it involves.

Unpredictability was actually a part of the mandate we were

given. The Center has forgone a permanent collection in favor

of various types of temporary exhibitions. There is no way to

know in advance what kind of art these changing exhibitions

will include. Today's artwork can vary from urban-scale objects

to the intimate experience of video. Of course, all institutions

that show contemporary art have to confront this challenge. But

the Center is unique in that it has faced up to the challengefrom the start, in the program it gave us. That attitude is

critical.

It should be manifesting the design of the new Center.

Q: Would it be fair to say you've designed an unpredictable

building to accommodate unpredictable art?

ZH: I love painting, but the idea of art has changed from

painting. The spaces in the Center don't have to be defined bythe need for walls to hang pictures on. Given a program for an

institution that exhibits contemporary art, we can and should

get away from the box, from ninety degree angles. Put it

another way: Recent art practice has invented various shifts in

perception, identity, and social behavior. How can an architect

use those shifts to engender a new space for art practice,

working within the specific community of Cincinnati?

Q: Before we get to the context of Cincinnati, can you tell us a

little more about those "shifts in perception, identity, and socialbehavior"?

ZH: Over the past thirty years, artists have been engaged in a

sometimes covert, always critical relationship to the institutions

that ultimately house their works. Minimalism, Conceptualism,

Performance, Installation Art - to mention only the most


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prominent examples - have sought to disrupt the chain that

leads from artwork to commodity to collecting institution. The

legacy of"objectless" art production must be confronted in any

attempt to conceive of a new museum or gallery.

Q: In other words, you can no longer just design a clean, white

box as a neutral space for exhibiting works of art.

ZH: "Neutral space" is a wishful oxymoron. All space is

colored by individual memory and experience. We propose

that the new Center should reflect the variety of contemporary

art in the way the building articulates its settings and spaces.

Instead of your seeing the sanctified object fixed in its niche,

multiple perceptions and distant views should create a richer,

more perplexing experience, taking your body through ajourney of compression, release, and reflection.

Q: As you mentioned before, this journey will take place in a

specific context: the corner of Walnut and West Sixth Street in

downtown Cincinnati..What are your impressions of

Cincinnati?

ZH: In a certain sense, Cincinnati is very much like a

European city. It has beautiful hillside areas of old houses, in

the Mount Adams district and the suburbs; it has the river and

the bridges. In another way, it's typically American in the way

the downtown has been developed. American cities at a

particular time really had a sense of mission about being a

metropolis. That was true of Cincinnati. And so, when you

approach it from one side, the skyline you see could almost be

in New York or Chicago. That was the model. It's very cleverly

done in Cincinnati; although the downtown is actually very

compact, it looks vast from one perspective. Then you drive

around and begin to realize you're seeing the same buildingthree or four times. The site, too, is very compact. At the same

time, it's in an area where the city has created a monumental

space for culture. So the idea of the ground,the lobby,

becomes very important. The ground has to be vibrant and

very active, always.


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Q: How does your design address this setting?

ZH: Because the site is so tight, your journey through the

building has to be vertical, more than horizontal. So one of the

main features we proposed was a careful examination of the

spatial possibilities in the galleries, with particular attention to

that verticality.

Second, the site is at an axis of considerable pedestrian

presence. It was our wish to exploit and incorporate the main

flows: from Walnut Street, from the Plaza on East Sixth and

Walnut, and more distantly from Fountain Square.The entrance

seeks to draw in movement from these "public rooms," while

the corner situation led us to develop two different, but

complementary, facades for the building.

Third, the CAC has wider obligations and functions than the

exhibition of art. It is a public institution, located in a

burgeoning downtown cultural district. As such, it has

responsibilities to the passerby, as much as to private clients

who might wish to hold a reception or banquet. We embodied

those responsibilities in our design strategy.

Q: Creating public space, accommodating multiple functions,

attracting pedestrian flow, drawing people upward into a

vertical structure: how do you address all of those issues?

ZH: We take the existing grid of the city-the lines that meet at

the corner of Sixth and Walnut-pull it into the Center at ground

level, and allow it to curve slowly upward. When you enter, it

will

seem as if the ground is rising to become the back wall of the

Center. There's one continuous surface between the street

outside and the wall inside. We call this the Urban Carpet.

Q: What are the functions of the Urban Carpet?

ZH: First, it mediates between the city, the lobby, and the

galleries beyond. Second, it allows for different types of

circulation through the building. You might say it's a public


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space, a circulation system, and a partition, all in one.

The lobby of the Center should become one of the most

inviting public spaces in Cincinnati. During the day, it should

be a kind of public square-an open,daylit, "landscaped"

expanse that should be viewed as an artificial park. Since the

Urban Carpet develops directly from the existing pedestrian

flow at Sixth and Walnut, it will allow for a variety of

walkthroughs of this "park." It also will provide static spaces

for

meeting; and, of course, the Urban Carpet will guide visitors.

Q: What kind of path will the Urban Carpet offer the visitor?

ZH: As it rises and turns, the Urban Carpet will lead you up asuspended mezzanine ramp through the full length of the lobby,

to the point where it penetrates the Carpet Wall and becomes

a mezzanine landing. Also, in the lobby, there is a cut in the

floor space, where another ramp leads to the lower level.

So there's a sense of movement sweeping into the building

from Fountain Square: movement that is transformed into a

space, which rises and falls, cutting back and forth.

Q: How does the Urban Carpet help to define different

functions within the building?

ZH: The lobby and lower level are conceived as free public

space. Withoutpaying an admission fee, you can enjoy the

"artificial park," walk up through the lobby to the museum

shop,

walk down to the caf on the lower level. This scheme allows

these areas to be used independently from the rest of the

Center. For example, while the rest of the building is closed inthe evening, performances or film screenings can be held on

the lower level, or a reception can take place in the lobby and

caf.

The free zone ends where the Urban Carpet penetrates the

wall and becomes a mezzanine landing. At that point, you


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come to the cloakroom and ticket control and can proceed

toward the galleries.

Q: Are these spaces connected by anything, other than the

Urban Carpet?

ZH: They are connected visually. Cuts in the lobby floor allow

for daylight,ventilation, and views into the caf. The ceiling of

the lobby is a kind of relief sculpture, perforated to allow you

glimpses of the galleries above and of the visitors flowing up

and down the ramps.

Q: What is your scheme for the galleries?

ZH: In contrast to the Urban Carpet, which is a series of highlypolished,undulating surfaces, the galleries will seem like

something raw, carved from asingle block of concrete and

floating over the lobby space. Your first impression should be

of anti-gravity-like the rock suspended in mid-air in Ren

Magritte's painting.

Because art today can take any form at all-any scale, any

medium, any material-the exhibition spaces vary in both size

and shape. Some of these idiosyncratic spaces should

particularly encourage the commissioning of site-specific

work. Flexible wall elements will be provided for sub-dividing

the larger spaces.Together, these varying galleries will

interlock like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, made up of

solids and voids.

Q: So you won't be able to predict the size and shape of the

gallery you're about to enter.

ZH: That's correct. Also, because of the way the circulationsystem zig-zags through a narrow slit at the back of the

building, your views from the ramp into the galleries are

unpredictable.

Q: In addition to the galleries, you were asked to design an

education center for children-the facility the CAC calls the


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UnMuseum.

ZH: Yes. The UnMuseum sits on top of the two floors of

galleries, and is given a sense of independence from them.

Q: What about the facilities for the Center's staff: the offices,

conferences rooms, lounges?

ZH: We have treated the staff facilities as translucent objects,

forming anundulating skin along the West Sixth Street side of

the building. On this side, we provide the staff with daylit

working environments and city views.

On the other side, the staff facilities are embedded in the

rough concrete setting of the galleries. This configuration leadsto an important type of blurring. By moving the usual "back of

the house" to the front, we initiate a more direct participation

between the Center's staff and the visitors in the galleries. And

an ambiguous boundary develops between the city outside

and the galleries within.

I should also mention the board room and the members'

lounge. Both are situated toward the top of the building, so

they provide spectacular views of Cincinnati. I think those

spaces should be a magnet for future members and

supporters of the Center.

Q: You've mentioned a translucent, undulating skin along the

West Sixth Street side. Could you tell us more about the

facade of the building?

ZH: There are actually two distinct but complementary

facades. The south facade, along Sixth Street, will integrate

itself with the city byoffering an animated and irregularlyinhabited skin. The gallery spaces,which seep to the edges,

form billboards of art for the city, while the offices will put a

different type of civic life on view. We hope to achieve the

impression of a collage, offering a strange, layered texture of

activity and art in constant flux. At night, the light from the

windows could be very beautiful. It could be animated with all


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kinds of different lighting programs.

The east facade, along Walnut, will be a sculptural relief. In

effect, it will provide an imprint, in negative, of the gallery

interiors.

Q: What do you hope the building will do for the Center and

for

Cincinnati?

ZH: In the first place, obviously, the building will assert the

Center's presence in the city. Until now, the Center hasn't had

a free-standing building of its own. It now occupies leased

space upstairs in a commercial building. Harry Weese

designed the space, which is actually quite nice. But if youdon't know the Center is there, you miss it entirely. So that's

about to change.

Beyond that, I hope people who pass by on the street will be

curious about what they see. They should ask themselves,

"What's going on in here?" and not hesitate to walk in and find

out.

Finally, I hope the building and the Center will work together. I

believe architects, like artists, have the possibility of making

culture. Like artists, architects should strive to be slightly

ahead of everybody else, so they can focus attention on what's

happening. I don't mean we can impose an idea on people.

But if the building and the Center can remain fresh,

unpredictable, forward-looking, contemporary - then we will

have succeeded.

zaha 1 interview

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