Zaha Hadid: Architecture

As Zaha Hadid has put it, "There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?" Why indeed? Hadid's architectural conceptions confound one with impossibilities, with floating buildings, indecipherable volumes, untraceable paths of light, spaces seemingly less related to real, livable space than something from a virtual dimension. Hers is a visionary architecture built in fantastic, streamlined paintings, innovative, whimsical 3-D models, and monumentally complex conceptual plans and renderings--and sometimes concrete, metal, and glass. "Zaha Hadid: Architecture," published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the MAK, Vienna, documents the architect's newest projects and presents an extensive overview of her complete oeuvre. Included are illustrations of designs, models, and mostly unpublished paintings by Hadid, as well as photographs of buildings realized and under construction, thus granting profound insight into all stages of project development from the abstract concept to its technical implementation. Highlighted projects include the Temporary Guggenheim Tokyo, the Biblioth?que Nationale in Montreal, the Salerno train terminal, the Wolfsburg Science Center, and the installation "Ice-Storm," created especially for the MAK exhibition. Texts by architecture critic Andreas Ruby and Hadid partner Patrik Schuhmacher round out this otherwise sharp book.