Where It All Began: 14 Early

Architectural Drawings by Zaha

Hadid
Zahaʼs early drawings possess an understated
quality and attention to detail in contrast to her
headline-grabbing later works.

Send us a drawing, tell us a story, win $2,500: Register for the One
Drawing Challenge today!

“Queen of the curve”

“Starchitect!”

“First female [insert accolade here]”

The late, great Zaha Hadid has been written about plenty — her work
scrutinized and loved by the media — for her story and background as
well as the distinctive architectural style she helped popularize and push
forward. Her innovations caused the kinds of controversies that only
come alongside an uncompromising vision. Her work became bigger than
the efforts of one person and was rarely noted for simplicity.

While Hadid was still a student at Londonʼs Architectural Association,

though, her hand drawings displayed skill and experimentation — yes —
but also an understated quality and attention to detail that hadnʼt yet
developed into the headline-grabbing work she would later become
known for. There was barely a curve in sight.

In an exhibition catalog published by the Pamphlet Architecture series,

five projects from her years at the Architectural Association — as she
was just beginning work with OMA, 1977 to 1981 — are presented and
offer a rare look at where her legacy really began. Proposals for
Malevichʼs Tektonik, Museum of the 19th Century London, Extension of
the Dutch Parliament in the Hague, residence for the Irish Prime Minister
and 59 Eaton Place are included, with more than a dozen beautiful plans
and sections for each.

All text description courtesy of Elia Zenghelis, Rem Koolhaas and OMA

1. Malevichʼs Tektonik, London, 1976/77

The Hotel:

“Zaha Hadid undertook in her horizontal Tektonik the task of handling the
‘mutationʼ factor for the architectural and programmatic requirements of
the project single-handed. Ignoring the rules, she designed the whole
thing, discovering in Malevichʼs apparent random composition ‘a methodʼ
for meeting this demand: this method was called tic-tic.”
Horizontal Tektonik designed as a hotel on the Thames, on the
Hungerford Bridge
Sections through hotel

“The design is a hotel which sits over Hungerford Bridge (carrying the
railway from Charing Cross Station to Waterloo and the south of
England), and adds an architectural bridge between 19th century London
and the South Bank. Reef for the shipwrecks of many architectural
movements of the recent past: Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall,
Hayward Gallery, the National Theatre. The project consists of 14 levels,
which systematically follow and exploit the volumetric envelope of the
Tektonik, turning all constraints into possibilities for enriching the
program for a hotel.”

The Club:

“The aim of this project was to insert into an existing architecture a new
part. This was both an extension of architectural propositions introduced
by the program inspired by one of Malevichʼs Tektoniks, and a way to
develop an interior architecture of programmatic and iconographic
effectiveness: a special architecture that could be inserted into existing
structure, so as to accommodate the rapid shits in Metropolitan culture.
The ‘clubʼ as social unit was a suitable vehicle for this program.”

Night club: main floor – pool, beach, bar and restaurant; glass floor over
changing rooms leading to sauna
Elevation from embankment

“To give more substance to the earlier project, as well as to perfect the
method, the club is inserted in the Tektonic Hotel, levels 7 and 8,
elaborating these in detail, both in terms of program and design.”

2. Museum of the 19th Century London, 1977/78

Conceptual plan with station, museum and superimposed various levels
of the hotel

“The Museum is primarily ideological and conjectural, in that beyond

specifying the program and designing it in detail, it lays down
demonstrable principles for what the role and presence of todayʼs urban
architecture should be, with particular relevance and emphasis on its
relationship to, and correspondence with it historical and cultural
context.”
Elevation

“This is accomplished in two ways: through the elaboration of a precise

social and programmatic scenario, appropriate to the metropolitan
location, and secondly through the display of a formal symbolic
sensitivity unknown to todayʼs European contextual architects.”
The activities on the roof of the hotel (which cuts diagonally across the
long museum building) are reconstructions of what takes place in the
squares below.

3. Extension of the Dutch Parliament, the Hague, 1978/79

“At this time, both the Dutch government and the Dutch parliament are
housed in a historical complex at the center of the Hague, the so-called
Binnenhof. It consists of a rectangular ‘fortressʼ — to which, since the
early middle ages each architectural period has made its contribution —
on a rectangular lake. At the center of the rectangle is the Gothic
‘Ridderzaalʼ (Knights Hall), once a church, now the secular symbol of
Dutch Parliamentary Democracy.”
Axonometric

“Through historical circumstances, government and parliament are

intertwined in this architectural complex in a way that denies their
political opposition. To correct this situation, a triangular site just outside
the original rectangle was designated as the site for a needed extension
of the parliamentary accommodation that had to be, at the same time, a
‘correctionʼ of the symbolism by performing an architectural conceptual
separation between the government and representatives.

“The total program had to be divided between existing structures that

had to be preserved, and the new part, which had to represent the
autonomy of the parliamentary process. In this scheme, the tradition
whereby each age manifests itself on the wall of the Binnenhof, is
maintained by creating a gap that is then occupied by two slabs, one
horizontal, the other vertical.
“The horizontal slab — a podium made of glass brick — contains all
accommodation from contained meeting rooms in a basement to more
open rooms on the ground floor, so that the entire building becomes a
covered forum for political activity, directly accessible to the general
public from the adjoining plaza. A small ‘skyscraperʼ of oval rooms
connected by a ramp, breaks through the roof. It also contains a
mezzanine for the press, as representatives of the general public.”

Ground floor plan (00m)

“An ambulatory runs through the middle of the second, vertical slab,
through the assembly hall itself, toward the ‘smoke-filledʼ room. Above
the ambulatory are three floors, where the political parties can discuss
and formulate their positions and then ‘filter downʼ to the ambulatory and
from there to the assembly. Below the ambulatory are three floors for the
professional managers of parliamentary procedure.”
The Ambulatory and its Connections

“The assembly itself links the two slabs, it is a ‘bridgeʼ between the
‘amateursʼ of the population at large, and the ‘professionalsʼ that they
have elected. It also forms a new entrance porch to the Binnenhof, which
focuses, once again, on the Ridderzaal. From the ‘forum,ʼ an escalator
leads directly to the public gallery in the assembly hall, a rectangle that
completely surrounds the parliamentary procedure.”

4. Residence for the Irish Prime Minister, Dublin, 1979/80

“Architects were invited to submit proposals in a single stage competition

for a residence for the Prime Minister together with a State Guest House.
The site lies a few miles outside Dublin to the north, in Phoenix Park, an
dis one of a number of official and embassy residences in this area.”

Site plan

“Existing on the site is the Prime Ministerʼs Georgian country residence

with various out-buildings, stables, walled garden, and medieval tower.
Retention of the existing house and out-buildings is not mandatory, but
the medieval tower is to be retained.
“The primary concern of the design was to create two separate entities.
The Prime Ministerʼs house with the reception room and the State Guest
House. Each entity must have its own sense of independence and
privacy. The State Guest House which is not likely to be used throughout
the year and the Prime Ministerʼs house, for it acts as a family residence.”

Ground floor plan: Prime Ministerʼs Residence: reception rooms, private

apartments, existing tower; State Guest House: lodgings and services,
secondary suite, entrance, study and library area, pool and sports; staff
quarters and service building

“The two houses were to be connected not only by the road but by a
covered walkway. The road system works like an artery feeding the
various houses on the site. The reception rooms in the Prime Ministerʼs
residence border the eastern approach road and provide a screen for the
Prime Ministerʼs residence which in turn intersects the reception rooms,
creating a private garden area for the permanent inhabitants.

“The State Guest House is placed within the existing walled garden with
all the rooms situated and contained around its perimeter. The only two
elements which break away from the confines of the wall are the
entrance reception block and the principal suite which floats out over the
garden.

“The only control imposed up on nature occurs within this area, while the
rest of the parkland is left free from any intervention. The forms of the
plan are designed to induce a feeling of freedom from gravity, a feeling of
liberation from bureaucratic and stressful aspects of political and public
life. They indicate a new aesthetic, a dynamic which has no reference to
Irelandʼs history and architectural typologies.”

5. 59 Eaton Place, 1980/81

“The apartment is located in Belgravia in a very sterile, white-washed

street with an absence of any nature. Number 59 was constructed at the
turn of the century as a large terraced town house and is typical of the
style of buildings in the Belgravia area. In common with the properties in
the immediate vicinity, the premises proved to be to large for a single
occupier and were converted into maisonettes some 14 years ago.

“The building is constructed as a ground floor and four upper levels, and
is divided to form three self-contained maisonettes and a basement. In
early 1980 two acts of urban change took pace in Belgravia: an explosion
at the Italian Consulate at 38 Eaton Place, which wrecked the entire
building; and new urban living injected into 59 Eaton Place.”
Ground floor showing materials

“The clients had modest requirements: they wanted elegance and

comfort. They had acquired an apartment which had undergone many
changes in the past 20 years and, being stripped of all its ornaments, the
house needed a certain newness.

“The apartment spans three floors and has three vertical conditions: The
front, which has partly maintained its classical elegance; The back, which
is an extension added in the mid-60s, humble and minimal in terms of its
materials and overloaded with divisions; The middle zone, which had
confronted the conflicts, had neither any glory of the past nor the
comfort of the present, but could only look forward to the future. Our
task was to renovate it.

“All the ground floor and the old living room were allocated to formal
occasions; the only intrusion was the addition of new materials on the
floors and a new fireplace. The lobby and dining room underwent the
most drastic change to release it from its present state of limbo. A new
staircase was installed, which extends the public domain to the second
floor where a new cloakroom is created.”

Perspective of dining room and lobby

“The top floor is the clientʼs private quarters, with two master bedrooms
– the one coinciding with the formal living room being the most
flamboyant, its materials of silk and stone. The library is abstracted, with
basic colors, minimum furniture but maximum treatment of the walls to
house all the books and mechanical equipment. The gymnasium with
Jacuzzi at the top of the new extension is the most clinical.”

These images are from Pamphlet Architecture 8: Planetary Architecture,

which is now available in the anthology Pamphlet Architecture 1-10 from
Princeton Architectural Press.
Now show us what you can do: Register for the One Drawing Challenge
and submit your best architectural drawing for a chance to win $2,500!

Register for the One Drawing Challenge

Credits: Dutch Parliament Extension: Office for Metropolitan

Architecture (OMA): Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis with:
Richard Perlmutter, Ron Steiner, Elias Veneris; Residence for the Irish
Prime Minister with: Kami Ahari, Jonathan Dunn, Camilla Ween; 59
Eaton Place with: Kasha Knapkiewicz, Jonathan Dunn, Special effects:
Bijan Ganjei, Models, column construction: Gus Hutcheson, Early stages:
Kami Ahari, Jamie Campbell; Contractors: R L Ruggles & Sons; Quantity
Survey: Alan Thomas & Associates; Engineers: Ron Wilson at Vincent
Grant; Exhibition: Nan Lee, Wendy Galway, N. Ayoubi; Catalog: Anna
Ruszkowska, Laura Beck