PRESS RELEASE

CARDIFF OPERA HOUSE

THE PEAK

KMR, ART AND MEDIA CENTRE

MALEVICH’S TEKTONIK

ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: PRESS@ZAHA-HADID.COM
THE PEAK [Kowloon, Hong Kong]
1982-1983
(Competition, First Prize)

Architectural Design Zaha Hadid

Design Team Zaha Hadid with Michael Wolfson, J. Dunn,

M. van der Waals, N. Ayoubi

Presentation M. Wolfson, A. Sanding, N. Lee, M. Galway

Structural Engineers Ove Arup & Partners with David Thomlinson

A Suprematist geology - materials that are impacted vertically and horizontally - characterizes this cliff top resort loftily located
above the congested city. The architecture cuts through traditional principles and reconstitutes new ones, defies nature and
resists destroying it.
Like the mountain, the building is stratified, which each layer defining a function: the first and second levels contain apartments,
the third layer -a 13-metre-high void suspended between the second and the penthouse storeys - features the club. The void is
a landscape within which functions - exercise platforms, snack bar, library - are suspended like planets. The upper strata contain
penthouse apartments.
Offering and symbolizing the pinnacle of the high life, the Peak's beams and voids are a gentle seismic shift on an immovable
mass.
CARDIFF OPERA HOUSE [Cardiff, Wales]
1994-1996
(Competition, First Prize)

Client Cardiff Bay Opera Trust

Architectural Design Zaha Hadid

Lead Designer Patrik Schumacher

Project Architect Brian Ma Siy

Competition Team Wendy Ing, Paola Sanguinetti, Nunu Luan, Douglas Grieco, Graham Modlen, Woody Yao, Paul Brislin, Voon Yi
Wong, Simon Koumjian, Anne Save de Beaurecueil, David Gomersall, Nicola Cousins

Consultants Structural Engineer Ove Arup and Partners, UK

Services Consultant Ove Arup and Partners, UK
Acoustic Consultant Ove Arup and Partners, UK
Theatre Consultant Anne Minors, Theatre Projects, UK
Costing Consultant Brett Butler-Tillyard, UK

Area 25,000 m²

The proposed design tries to achieve simultaneity of typically exclusive paradigms of urban design: monument and space. The
project takes part in the continuous building mass giving shape to the Oval Basin Piazza as envisioned by the master plan. At
the same time, the building projects a strong figural landmark against the waterfront. The dichotomy of the typical perimeter
block externally shaping a larger public urban space while enclosing a secluded internal space is dissolved into a continuum
between those two types of spaces. This is achieved by three complementary moves: the raising of the perimeter; the
opening up of the perimeter at the corner pointing at the pier head and revealing the expressed volume of the auditorium as the
main solid figure within the perimeter of the site; and finally, the continuation of the public urban space by means of extending
the plaza with a gentle slope into the site establishing a new ground plane over the main foyer areas. Thus the project provides
a raised plaza suitable for outdoor performances and allowing an enhanced vista back into the Inner Harbor and Bay. The
building concept is based on the architectural expression of the hierarchy between serviced and servicing spaces: the auditori-
um and the other public and semi-public performance and rehearsal spaces spring like jewels from a band of rationally lined up
support accommodations. This band is then wrapped around the perimeter of the site like an inverted necklace where all the
jewels turn towards each other creating a concentrated public space between each other, accessible to the public from the cen-
ter while serviced from the back around the perimeter. This central space is experienced from the courtyard open to the
sky as well as from the foyer areas under the raised ground floor. The auditorium and the main rehearsal studios penetrate this
raised ground floor. Cuts in this plane mark the two axes crossing the space from the two main entrances: the main pedestrian
entrance from the Oval Basin Piazza and the concourse entrance with drop-off from Pierhead Street.
KMR, ART AND MEDIA CENTRE [Dusseldorf, Germany]
1989 - 1993
(Competition, First Prize)

Client Kunst-und Medienzentrum Rheinhafen GmbH, Germany

Architectural Design Zaha Hadid

Project Architects Brett Steele and Brian Ma Siy

Project Team Paul Brislin, Cathleen Chua, John Comparelli, Elden Croy, Craig Kiner, Graeme Little, Yousif Albustani, Patrik
Schumacher, Daniel Oakley, Alistair Standing, Tuta Barbosa, David Gomersall, C.J. Lim

Competition Team Michael Wolfson, Anthony Owen, Signy svalastoga, Edgar Gonzales, Graig Kiner, Patrik Schumacher, Ursula
Gonsinor, Bryan Langlands, Ed Gaskin, Yuko Moriyama, Graeme Little, Cristrina Verissimo, Maria Rossi, Youisif
Albustani

Models Ademir Volic, Daniel Chadwick, Richard Threadgill

Consultants Consultant Architect Roland Mayer, Germany

Structural Engineers
Services Engineers
Cost Consultants
Ove Arup and Partners, UK
Boll und Partner, Germany
Ove Arup and Partners, UK
Mornhinweg and Partner, Germany
Tillyard GmbH, Germany

The development of this prominent site is the impetus to transform the old Dusseldorf Harbour into a new Enterprise Zone. The
programme for the whole area concentrates on providing facilities for the communication business and allied, creative profes-
sions. Their offices and studios are interspersed with and supported by shops, restaurants, cultural and leisure facilities. This
becomes a strategy for the whole harbour development.
The focus of the area is the river, which is animated with sport and leisure activities. A large, artificially modelled landscape, with
one of the planes like a grass wedge, faces the river and becomes an extension of this very public and active part of the site.
This is physically protected by a 90 m long wall of offices. From the river an enormous metallic triangle cuts into the site. It pierces
the wall, breaking it, to form an entrance ramp to the street and a sloping plaza below. The adjoining ground planes crack open
and reveal technical studios to the North, shops and restaurants to the South. Below ground, a wall of technical services is com-
pressed, which results in part of the wall rising above ground and curving around to form a 320 seat cinema.
On the street side the wall has tiny, linear incisions in its in-situ concrete elevation; while on river side, individual floors are artic-
ulated by varying depths of cantilever according to the function of each of the floors. The advertising agency is an even more
fragmented series of slabs, set perpendicular to the street. They are glass splinters broken from the wall and have floor to floor
full height triple glazed curtain wall. Where the floor slabs converge, a void is carved out for conference rooms and exhibition
areas. The cores of lifts and services are separated into detached elements to give dramatic, uninterrupted views across the
Agency. The entrance lobby is at the point of intersection of wall and Agency. It is a minimalist glass box surrounded by a fam-
ily of sculptured feet and heavy, triangular, transfer structures. A grand curved stair leads the way up to the conference rooms
through the underbelly of a heavy slab suspended above.
MALEVICH'S TEKTONIK [London, UK]
1976 - 1977

For the graduation project at the Architectural Association, Zaha Hadid explored the 'mutation' factor for the programme
requirements of a hotel on the Hungerford Bridge over the Thames. The horizontal 'tektonik' conforms to and makes use of the
apparantly random composition of Suprematist forms to meet the demands of the programme and the site.

The bridge links the nineteenth century side of the river with the South Bank, which is dominated by the Brutalist forms of a
1950's arts complex. The fourteen levels of the building systematically adhere to the tektonik, turning all conceivable con-
straints into new possibilities for space.

The project has particular resonance with Hadid's later projects. First, in the Great Utopia show at the Guggenheim, she was
able to realize some of these tektoniks in concrete form, and second in the Habitable Bridge project, which considered the
possibilities of a mixed-use development over the Thames.
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