Zaha Hadid's Paintings Imagining Architecture

Zaha Hadid is widely regarded as a visionary and influential architect, who became globally acclaimed by the time of her untimely death in 2016. This book is the first to focus on how painting was fundamental to her practice. During the first 20 years of her career, she earned her reputation through ‘ paper architecture’ : projects which were widely published in architecture journals and exhibited, but which remained largely unbuilt. Influenced by the Suprematists, she used her paintings as design tools and abstraction as an investigative structure for imagining architecture. Drawing extensively on interviews with Hadid's contemporaries and her team of assistants and her past presentations and in-depth interviews, this book is the first to focus on the important aspect of Hadid’ s work. It examines selected paintings in detail, both critically assessing them in the wider context of C20th fine art – in relation to the Suprematists, de Stijl, Cubism and Futurism – and offering insights into how Hadid used the paintings to develop architectural and spatial ideas, which she would later realise in her buildings.

Desley Luscombe is Emeritus Professor of Architecture at University of Technology Sydney, Australia. While at UTS she held the position of Dean of Faculty of Design Architecture and Building from 2004-2016. From 1977, she was founding partner of Campbell Luscombe Architects (Sydney). While achieving her PhD in Renaissance Studies, Luscombe’ s current research focuses on twentieth-century architectural drawings.

Introduction; 1. Malevich's Tektonic and 59 Eaton Place; 2. The Peak; 3. Grand Buildings; 4. Office in Kurfuerstendamm 70, Berlin; 5. Vitra Fire Station; 6. MAXXI, Rome; Conclusion