I am not a fan of the starchitects. I find them to be irritating, using the same schtick over and over. Recently, ArchDaily posted the finalists from a competition in the Hague for a new dance / music center, and I was amazed to find myself enjoying a proposal from Zaha Hadid.
This submission is the first project from Hadid’s office that I have not strongly disliked. As I usually find, though, upon closer inspection, the details tend to fall apart for me. The facade is a wonderfully textural experience. But I am not a fan of the interior. Hadid’s schtick seems to be to constantly disorient overwhelm people. I appreciate that they managed dial it back a bit here, but the interior is back to the same old tricks. And the theaters appear to be from Star Trek TNG.
I like the model and some of the renderings from Diller Scofidio + Renfro / Solid Objectives / Idenburg L. But I did find some of the design moves to be a bit frivolous.
As Peter Griffin would say, some of the submissions really grind my gears. The Aedas Limited submission feels a bit like brutalist revival, though their interior renderings are a bit more subtle. Cruz y Ortiz made a big box with bubbles. De architecten Cie / KPMB Architects apparently made a mountain out of a molehill and then slapped a building around it. Henning Larsen / Grontmij’s proposal looks more like a children’s museum with a death star inside. Neutelings Riedijk / Kirkegaard made an entire wall of boxes for Statler and Waldorf. And OMA… well let’s just say it looks decidedly OMA-ish.
The Ian Simpson / Jonkman Klinkhamer submission is my favorite. It’s not overpowering, and has a well-choreographed interior organization. It doesn’t feel schticky in the least. It feels like a design concept that has been thought out and massaged into something that will work well for the users.
[ images via ArchDaily ]
