Comments on: RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist

By: DanR

DanR — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:55:43 +0000

The issue is not one of “Vernacular” or one of “being chained to the past.” The issue with the Zaha brand is that each piece can exist anywhere and thus actually exists nowhere. She never ties or tethers it to anything. Even in the Cincinnati Art Museum, which the “urban carpet” turns from ground to wall….she doesnt actually turn the real urban carpet upward. She cuts and discards the carpet, inserts her smooth clean concrete turns it up a wall and pretends its something more than it is…self indulgent sculpture. She produces generic sculpture, while initially attractive then waning, it is not architecture, IMO.

By: john graham

john graham — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:03:43 +0000

dear commenter nick, when people say “oblivious to context” what I take that to mean is that the architecture doesn’t fit in. It doesnt look like what sorounds it. I do believe in the creation of ‘vernacular’. But I fear that what passes as ‘context’ is the architecture of the past. If we are overly concerned with fitting in, we will not progress towards new forms. We will be chained to a past, which is horrible even if the past is a good one.

By: john graham

john graham — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:59:06 +0000

clearly zaha

By: jed_

jed_ — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:10:19 +0000

totally confusing post.

By: nick

nick — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:37:58 +0000

When will people wake up to the fact that Hadid’s work is pants! Its all the same, and that sameness manifests itself as a tedious repetition of the same boring idea - blobby curvy, oblivious to context and always managing to look simultaneously over priced and badly finished round the edges. Starchitecture at its worst.

By: tim

tim — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:06:46 +0000

site picture of arena station is the most modern picture Ive seen in awhile. I did not know we lived in the future.

By: edward

edward — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:17:50 +0000

Some really high quality design/construction here with nary a deconstruction in sight. The Hadidblob, while a construction tour de force, is the only downer.