Zaha Hadid: Space for Art--Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati

Rating:
Summary: Urban Terrorism
Review: Hadid made her name with slick drawings. As images they can be seductive, but it must be admitted that they have nothing to do with architecture. Hadid's buildings prove the point that her work is not really about architecture or space much as she professes otherwise. Remove her computer graphic program and the you get the crude interpretaion of ideas not fully worked out, passing themselves off as a building. The CAC was designed on screen without any reference to site or context, and it shows. There is no attempt to adress scale (human or urban), and the massing is loud and arrogant. ("Look at Me" - it screams.) Sadly for Cincinatti, they are stuck with this amatuerish and crude building. As for the book, it is predicatable in its praise and cliched in its language. The photos are irritating insofar as they make difficult views more unreadable than they need be. I can't help wondering if this is just a trick that weas deployed because there are no satisfying compositional views within this building that could be taken. Hadid should stick to drawings where she cannot do so much damage to our urban centers.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Building and Book
Review: Hadid made her name with slick drawings. As images they can be seductive, but it must be admitted that they have nothing to do with architecture. Hadid's buildings prove the point that her work is not really about architecture or space much as she professes otherwise. Remove her computer graphic program and the you get the crude interpretaion of ideas not fully worked out, passing themselves off as a building. The CAC was designed on screen without any reference to site or context, and it shows. There is no attempt to adress scale (human or urban), and the massing is loud and arrogant. ("Look at Me" - it screams.) Sadly for Cincinatti, they are stuck with this amatuerish and crude building. As for the book, it is predicatable in its praise and cliched in its language. The photos are irritating insofar as they make difficult views more unreadable than they need be. I can't help wondering if this is just a trick that weas deployed because there are no satisfying compositional views within this building that could be taken. Hadid should stick to drawings where she cannot do so much damage to our urban centers.

Rating:
Summary: Urban Terrorism
Review: It is hard to imagine a building less humanising, graceful or visually satisfying thad Hadid's Arts Center in Cinicinatti. Pumped up as it is on sculptural pretense and imbecilic notions about space and form, all that has been achieved is a form of monumental arrogance that promotes the cult of Zaha, even as she thumbs her nose at downtown Cincinatti. For Hadid, architecture is not about people, cities or urbanism, but rather about converting superficial diagrams into built form. It is no surprise then that Hadid, (who is known for her rudeness to staff, students and clients alike), could give a proverbial s**t about Cincinatti where she neither lives nor works. This is a monstrous building passing itself off as avante-garde design. It's about time someone called it as it is.