Figuring ground: notes on recent work by the Office of Zaha Hadid

On studying the latest monograph dedicated to recent work by the Office of Zaha Hadid (OZH) – El Croquis No.103: ‘Zaha Hadid 1996–2001’ – one enjoys two distinct sensations: awe and pleasure. Truly remarkable in both number and quality, this collection of sophisticated, poised and delicate projects – some recently realized, others imminent – demonstrates syntheses more sizable and more programmatically challenging than those of the previous 15-year period. Indeed, in conversation with Architectural Association Chairman Mohsen Mostafavi, Hadid offers that ‘a new degree of complexity has been entered’.As Mostafavi notes, the conceptual theme evident in recent work is that of geology. The genealogy of this theme can be read in early seminal works like the Hong Kong Peak Project of 1983, where planarity and spatial compression combined with sculptural tactics, like the carving of existing landscape, to produce public spaces within a newly animated topography. But Hadid comments that more recent projects have tended to another strain of the geological thematic: the volumetric.