How Was Zaha Hadid s Legacy Continue
The real legacy of Zaha Hadid
Sumita Singha OBE 💙
Sumita Singha OBE 💙
Chartered Architect- Professor of Architecture- Charity Trustee
Last Thursday, I was invited by a group of female architects to join in a discussion about women in architecture in a North London pub. As I went the bar to order and also request the bartender to tone down the music a bit so that we could hear each other, he seemed curious about our discussions, so I said, 'We are all architects and we are going to talk about architecture'. He replied, 'So will you be talking about Zaha Hadid?' 'No, not exclusively', I replied but I was still surprised to hear that someone outside the profession knew about Zaha Hadid. Zaha's death shocked all architects but I was also surprised to see how widely the media covered it (and continue to cover her work). And it wasn't just the BBC or the Guardian but even the free tabloids such as Evening Standard and Metro. People were talking about a female architect- even a pharmacist colleague mentioned how much he liked her work. But it was not always that the world talked about female architects, or even architects- and certainly not with such a distinctly Middle Eastern name.
In the nineties and noughties, when Zaha might been just starting to make waves in the architectural world, women in architecture were still the eye candy in architectural media. This carpet advertisement below from the year 2000 was published in an architectural magazine (I have a large collection of other such advertisements from trade magazines- the cover image is another).
At that time, I was chairing Architects for Change, RIBA's equality forum and Angela Brady was chair of Women in architecture. Both of us wrote to the (female) editor and asked why this kind of image was needed in the 21st century? The reply from the (male) commercial director of that magazine was that advertisements brought income and hadn't we seen women's fashion magazines where there was so much more nudity? Another kind of oblique response came from this unrelated editorial below from a trade magazine two years later- the words reflect how women and especially, women in construction, were viewed at that time (ironically, this man may been trying to be supportive but he comes out as particularly confused by his own misogynistic interpretations).
I have not yet met a scruffy architect- male or female- and it is good that we take care to look professional and can make individual fashion statements as an extension of our eye for the aesthetic. However, justifying the photo of a nude woman as a requirement for commercial reasons is unfortunate and demeaning. But women clothed also suffer from stereotyping in the world of architecture. In 2015, I read an article about a female architect, who was described as 'immensely clubbable' with a 'warm and ready' smile, 'talks warmly' 'with a confiding air', 'a delight', 'tempestuous', 'easy manner', 'disarmingly candid', 'warm', 'ready', along with the descriptions of her clothes. Was I reading an architectural magazine, I wondered. Perhaps in a misguided attempt to 'humanise' the architect, unfortunately I got the impression of a fluffy clothes horse. Not that clothes haven't featured in a male architect's life. Charles-Edouard Jeannette adopted a grand name 'Le Corbusier'; and wore glasses and clothes to go with that persona; and Frank Lloyd Wright had his characteristic sartorial style (and even inspired a fashion collection in 2015), to name a couple. But more has been written about their work than clothes they wore, their mannerisms or smiles. Professional women face unique societal pressures to focus on external things. I wrote previously about how I was asked not to smile for a photoshoot, so that I would be taken more seriously. It is up to a person to smile for a photo (how many photos of Le Corbusier show him smiling? It may be he had bad teeth, of course); but then to interpret a person's readiness to smile as a measure of their professional qualities appears to be applicable to only female architects.
The photo below was taken when Zaha Hadid received the inaugural Jane Drew 'Women in architecture' award in 2012.
Following that award, she gave an interview to CNN in which she said, 'I used to not like being called a woman architect: I'm an architect, not just a woman architect," Guys used to tap me on the head and say, "You are O.K. for a girl." But I see the incredible amount of need from other women for reassurance that it could be done, so I don't mind that at all.' Whether Zaha smiled or not, she was incredibly warm and encouraging the few times that I met her. Although she reluctantly accepted the mantle of a 'role model' for others, in reality her professional struggle was her own struggle (as is anyone else's- male or female). So although we did have external things in common- being female architects from ethnic backgrounds- my interests in architecture were never the same as hers and as it is to be expected, not everyone took to the very individual style of her creations. Even so, to describe Zaha as the 'Queen of curves', as has been done, is not only incorrect but also follows a typical gender stereotyping- can you imagine a male architect being called 'King of Curves'? In response to a LA Times article about Zaha's significance as a role model, readers protested that she was a role model for both male and female architects, not just female or ethnic minority. Indeed, that she may have been but her real legacy lay in making architecture a popular discourse- no one has done this before. And as practising architects of any gender, we need that more than anything else.
Explore topics
williamsblennoreculd.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-legacy-zaha-hadid-sumita-sinha
0 Response to "How Was Zaha Hadid s Legacy Continue"
Post a Comment