WEIL, Germany — Following famed architect Zaha Hadid’s death in March, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec returned to one of their first projects as builders to leave an installation as tribute.
The brothers went to the Vitra Fire station, which is part of the Vitra Campus in Weil, Germany, according to Design Week. Their first major project, they were commissioned to build the fire station in 1990 after much of the Vitra Campus was (coincidentally) destroyed by a fire.
The tribute is comprised of 120 vases that are made out of groups of metal cylinders in varying heights. These were filled with flowers, which bloom before a single picture of Hadid illuminated by a light. It’s a very simple installation (Hadid doesn’t even get a frame), but it communicates its message of tribute well. The fact that it was installed in a building that launched the careers of two renowned architects shows the moving, profound respect the brothers must have for Hadid.
Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, 65, died of a heart attack in a Miami hospital. She was being treated for bronchitis at the time. In 2004 she became the first Arab woman to receive the Pritzker Prize for Architecture. She won the Stirling Prize for three years in a row starting in 2010. In 2012 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Following Hadid’s death, the studio is being run by Patrik Schumacher. According to Dezeen, Schumacher intends to press on with the business and attempt to grow it.
“This team is still quite young and we have a lot of energy and power to surge forward,” he says in the movie, which Dezeen filmed in London.
“I believe the kind of organisation we are is unprecedented and is yet to evolve.”
ZHA will complete the remaining 36 projects that were underway in 21 countries at the time of Hadid’s death. These include the controversial Qatar soccer stadium and an airport terminal in Beijing.
Let us know what you think of this tribute in (not quite) contemporary ceramics.
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