kevin

If the goal of Zaha Hadid's lecture was to make me depressed about the quality of my drawings, it succeeded admirably. Conversely, the images she showed inspired me to try harder.

It was the images that were shown last night that really told the story. Those beautiful angular forms were very pleasing, and there was no post-rationalist jargon to get in the way of enjoying them. Some of the buildings were truly breathtaking, especially the new building in Wolfsburg. I can imagine that the look of these buildings will become symbolic of the early 21st century like the white cubes of the early modernists have become symbolic of their time. Funnily enough, however, I don't think these forms and images really are of our time. To me, these buildings are reminiscent of the 1980s of Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls. The color palette of steely teal, silver, and carmine are more "Rio" than 'Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not'. I imagine that these slick, angular structures are inhabited by immaculately coiffured men and woman wearing suits with really large shoulder pads. That's more compliment than criticism by the way.

As for the speaker herself, what can you say? Her request for a fan from the audience summed it up. She's become iconic herself: a larger-than-life star architect for whom a chauffer-driven Merc was waiting outside. I wouldn't want to cross her.