Explains DARC’s director, Pio Baldi: “This exhibition gives a portrait in the round of a deeply complex and many-sided artist, who took up architecture after first studying pure mathematics in Beirut and later attending the prestigious Architectural Association in London. With this opening homage to Hadid’s brilliant achievements, the Centro’s exhibition calendar is now in full swing and will continue even while the new buildings are being constructed”.
Extensive space is devoted to Hadid’s most recent works, comprising 13 public areas, all still under construction and each portrayed at varying points of progress: from the initial idea to drawings, paintings and computer aided developments, right through to the final mock-ups. Such as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (1998), where an urban carpet of polished and undulating surfaces accompanies visitors to galleries housed in a single large concrete block. Which, when completed in 2003, will be the first art museum to be built in Cincinnati for more than a century. And most importantly, it will be the first museum in the United States to have been designed by a woman.
Among the exhibits is the Centro per le Arti Contemporanee itself, scheduled to open in its definitive form by 2005. Or again, the ferry terminal for the port of Salerno (2000), the Grand Bibliothèque du Québec in Montreal (2000), the Guggenheim Foundation in Tokyo (2001), and the brand-new BMW factory in Leipzig (2002). The exhibition also however makes a point of focusing on Zaha Hadid’s early, realised projects which are now classics. For it was these that established her reputation among the big names in architecture: the fire station at Weil am Rhein (1991-93) and the Kunst Media Center in Dusseldorf (1989-93).
The immersion in Hadid’s world continues with her design prototypes, favourite books and films and, finally, two videos telling the full story in pictures.
until 11.8.2002
Zaha Hadid. Works and projects
Centro nazionale per le arti contemporanee
via Guido Reni 8/10, Rome
13.5.2002, h 19
Zaha Hadid Lecture
Università di Roma 3, Aula Magna del Rettorato
via Ostiense 159, Rome
http://www.darc.beniculturali.it/hadid/index.html
