Patrick Schumacher and Zaha Hadid - Design London Wednesday, September 24, 2008 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Literature

    Zaha Hadid, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2006, pp. 139 and 167; Charlotte and Peter Fiell, eds., Design Now!, Cologne, 2007, front cover and p. 231

  • Catalogue Essay

    A vortex is a whirling mass of water, air or fire; it’s an atmospheric force. But the fourth element doesn’t escape the definition, for earth is always beset by violent states of affairs—‘the vortex of war’. On the occasion of Zaha Hadid’s 2004 Pritzker Prize, juror Ada Louis Huxtable wrote, "[Her] fragmented geometry and fluid mobility do more than create an abstract, dynamic beauty; this is a body of work that explores and expresses the world we live in." The 'VorteXX' chandelier (2005), designed by Hadid in collaboration with partner Patrik Schumacher, does both. Disruptive lines and fibreglass protrusions offer a wry remark on tumult, which draws everything into its current. In apposition—not opposition, for we all daily live with instability—the chandelier’s 'endless ribbon of light' is an expression of fluidity and seamless complexity, a universal condition. A programmable LED light strip confers color while changing through the visible spectrum from red to yellow to violet. Viewed in profile, VorteXX can be read as brushstrokes, reminding us of Hadid’s significant work as a young painter influenced by Russian Constructivism. Up close, the chandelier asserts her tectonic tendencies to build with folds and clusters. VorteXX is tectonic too. As with so much of Hadid’s built and imagined work, it expresses a key principle: earth’s plates slip and collide.

118

‘VorteXX’

2005
Custom-coloured lacquered fibreglass-reinforced polyester, opaque acrylic, LEDs. 
151.1 x 172.7 x 180.3 cm. (59 1/2 x 68 x 71 in.)
Produced by Sawaya & Moroni, Italy and Zumtobel Lighteriors, Austria.  Number eight from an edition of 25.

Estimate
£80,000 - 120,000 

Sold for £145,250

Design

25 Sept 2008, 2pm
London