The Burnham Pavilion: Zaha Hadid

The Burnham Pavilion ..
Architect: Zaha Hadid
Location: Millennium Park ..
The Burnham Pavilions commemorate the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago. Two such pavilions are commissioned in the Millennium Park
# For information on the commission of these pavilions .. click here ..
# For information on the other pavilion by UNStudio .. click here ..

The pavilions are temporary: June 19, 2009 to October 31, 2009 ..
However there was a delay the Zaha's pavilion, which opened on August 4, 2009.

From the architect herself ..
"Superimpositions of spatial structures with hidden traces of Burnham's organizational system create unexpected results in the Burnham Pavilion. By using methods of overlaying, complexity is built up and inscribed in the structure ."
- Zahan Hadid ..




I was not at all impressed ...
- I had high expectations, with all the publicity it got ..
- It was way behind schedule [seven weeks late] .. In fact the tent covered construction site contributed to raising my expectations. But when I finally saw the complete work, it was a disappointment! In fact I had once seen it's metal skeleton, and that, I thought was impressive ..
- There was no place to sit and relax on the pavilion .. In fact from the UNStudio pavilion one could see the Zaha pavilion very clearly .. but not the vice-versa ..
- Maybe, it's juxtaposition to a sturdy, much more inviting UNStudio pavilion did not help either. I saw many kids playing on the UNStudio pavilion, whereas in this one the interaction seemed to be missing ...
- The proclaimed play of light and space was not obvious, at least to me ..
Maybe a night-time visit might change my views!!




The structural ribs..


The marker informs ...
Zaha Hadid's designs have the power to reinterpret and invigorate our understanding of what a building or a cityscape can be. Her fluid structures evolve from experimentations with cutting-edge technologies to reinterpret space itself.

Examining Burnham's drawings in the "Plan of Chicago", Hadid was struck by how the city's diagonal streets open up the otherwise rigid street grids. Lengthening the drawn line of one of the diagonals, she marked where the street would fall if extended into Millennium Park. The design for the Burnham Pavilion incorporated that line, with the structural ribs and openings in the roof parallel to an imaginary extension of a diagonal street. The result is Hadid's sinuous pavilion that plays with shadow, light and space.

The outer and inner shells of the Hadid Burnham pavilion is made up of fabric stretched tightly over aluminium ribs. The media installation inside by artist Thomas Gray projects onto the fabric, appearing different at various times of day and night, as the interplay of light and shadow changes. The film reflects Chicago's transformation and includes the voices of people throughout the Chicago region sharing visions of the future.

The pavilion is made of totally recyclable materials and can be dismantled and reinstalled elsewhere after the centennial ...

About Zaha Hadid ..
Born in Baghdad, Iraq, zaha Hadid was passionate about mathematics from an early age. She moved to London in the mid-1970's where she started her architectural practice and continues it today. In 2004, Hadid became the first woman and the youngest architect so far to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture. In 2006, she was honored with a 30-year retrospective exhibition of her work in Giggenheim Museum in New York ..

* Remark .. This is exactly the kind of writing that raises expectations!