Zaha Hadid: Part V

Indications for Future Study

Zaha Hadid, Abud Dhabi Performing Arts Center, begun in 2009 (in process) *

Hadid’s architecture of this century is organic with specific references to the botanical concepts of growth, organization and entropy. In the last entry on this journal, I used the new Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center as example. That structure looks like a branching vine or tree reaching toward the sparkling waters that surround Saadiyat Island. I make no claim here for the spontaneous acquisition of energy from nothing, which is the chief point in arguments against the conceptualization of growth and organization and evolution on the part of creationists. * 2 Instead, I site the fact that scientists have repeatedly observed phenomena based on growth and spontaneous organization in biological process both in the plant and animal kingdoms. The applied sciences have used this observed organic process to develop computer programming that generates multi-agent organization, which fosters the functionality of Websites like Facebook and Twitter. Zaha Hadid, fascinated by these organic processes uses them as inspiration for her architecture. She creates architectural programs that are an affirmation of life on Earth.

Interesting to this writer is the fact that the organic process involving growth, organization and entropy can also be used to achieve an understanding of cultural processes including languages, and human production like the arts. In the future I will look at how that cultural process works, though that will have to wait until I have had time to investigate both the process, and examples of actual function in the arts.


Notes

* “Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center by Zaha Hadid,” in Archinomy:  Bridging the Gap, at http://www.archinomy.com/.  Viewed 10:31 EDT, Sunday, August, 28, 2011. It is known that the use of images for one time scholarly purposes is legal under United States Copyright law.

* 2 The creationist argument against evolution that nothing can come from nothing involves the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which as far as I can tell is about the dissolution or movement of energy towards stasis/entropy. Thus, the 2nd Law is not about something coming from nothing, rather it is about the non-availability of energy for work. In other words it is about energy becoming useless. Quite frankly, I have difficulty finding a link between the 2nd law and evolution. The creationist argument is specious. Instead, Science is simply a tool to discover the amazing processes involved in God’s work. I don’t understand why the specificity of the Bible is so important to some Christians. The books of the Bible are products of the time in which they were written by men, and are limited by the lack of human understanding of God’s creation and/or intent. At any rate, the techniques of God’s creation are not so important. The fact of that creation is important.

Futagawa,Yoshio, "Special Issue, Zaha Hadid," Global Architecture Magazine: Document 99 (2007)

Hadid, Zaha, with Introduction by Aaron Betsky.  New York: Rizzoli, 2009.

Hadid, Zaha, Zaha Hadid Architects. at http://www.zaha-hadid.com/.  Viewed 10:35 AM, EDT, Sunday, August 28, 2011.

Parunak, H. Van Dyke & Brueckner, Sven, “Entropy and Self-Organization in Multi-Agent Systems,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents 2001), p. 124-130.

Zaha Hadid, Google  at http://www.google.com/.  Viewed 10:39 AM  EDT, Sunday, August 28, 2011.