ZAHA HADID, UNE ARCHITECTURE
Friday, 29 April– Sunday, 30 October 2011
Mobile Art
Institut du monde arabe
1 rue des Fossés-St-Bernard,
Place Mohammed V, 75005 Paris
T + 33 1 40 51 38 38
www.imarabe.org
Opening hours:
From Tuesday to Friday: 10 am–6 pm
Week end and public holiday: 10 am–7pm
Early in 2011 CHANEL donated the pavilion to the Institut du monde arabe (IMA). This travelling exhibition space, which has travelled to Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York since 2008, will now have a location at the IMA, where it will be used to host exhibitions in line with the centre’s policy of showcasing talent from Arab countries.
“I think through our architecture, we can give people a glimpse of another world, and enthuse them, make them excited about ideas. Our architecture is intuitive, radical, international and dynamic. We are concerned with constructing buildings that evoke original experiences, a kind of strangeness and newness that is comparable to the experience of going to a new country. The Mobile Art pavilion follows these principles of inspiration,” states Zaha Hadid.
Zaha Hadid Architects’ recent explorations of natural organisational systems have generated the fluidity evident in the Mobile Art pavilion. Its organic form has evolved from the spiralling shapes found in nature. This system of organisation and growth offers an appropriate expansion towards the pavilion’s circumference, giving it generous public areas at its entrance with a 125-square-metre terrace. The pavilion follows the parametric distortion of a torus. This circular torus creates a constant variety of exhibition spaces around its circumference, whilst at its centre, a large 65-square-metre courtyard with natural lighting provides an area for visitors to meet and reflect on the exhibition.
ZAHA HADID, UNE ARCHITECTURE
The pavilion’s interior in its refurbished status is enriched by fluid forms that structure the torus-like exhibition loop and therefore differentiate the visitor’s tour. The aim is to utilise the existing quality of the sculpted internal walls and space divisions to enhance the visitor’s experience and provide rhythmical spatial sequences for a sensually differentiated walk-through.
The scenography works as an architectural installation in which visitors experience in a 1:1 scale the minimal surfaces and network systems that characterise Zaha Hadid’s architecture.
The exhibition explores a series of research agendas conducted by Zaha Hadid Architects in recent years. Different media is used to show the work: models, prototypes, sculptures, paintings and projections.
Furthermore the exhibition showcases Zaha Hadid Architects’ design research within the parametric paradigm. This programme is defining and developing a conceptual framework for the design of a prototype tower to be used as the basis for a set of parametric tools that can be applied to a multitude of different specific conditions. Individual elements such as massing, skin, core, void, and structure are modulated individually and in concert. The final result is a fully malleable system that can differentiate families and fields of towers in response to user input or environmental considerations.
This research has already been applied to architectural practice such as a tower competition entry related to a large urban scale. The novelty in parametric architecture resides in its direct consideration of contextual, objective parameters such as surfaces, heights, climate or gauge, but also qualitative, sociological and other more subjective elements such as uses and social constraints.
The visitor is invited to experience the work of Zaha Hadid Architects on three different levels, by discovering the Mobile Art pavilion (building), experiencing the exhibition design (scenography) and seeing the international work of the practice (exhibits).
Image above:
Photo © François Lacour/AIA Productions (APC+AIA).
