ARCHITECTURAL DANCE- ZAHA HADID FOR LAB 23

Our ability to change place, to transfer ourselves from one place to another, to enjoy different kinds of views, of feelings, of places is a discourse which we take for granted. If we give it another thought we will be able to find that movement is an integral part of our life, it’s the gas that keeps us going.

The idea of movement is an important issue regarding architecture, basically because it elevates the integration between places.

It debates again the importance of places and their identity. It explores relationships between full and void, object and background, form and function.

This is an evolutionary pattern that is evident throughout Zaha Hadid‘s, one of the most brilliant architects that walks amongst us these days, repertoire. Her ability to create excitement through movement and translate it into architecture is a slight way to define wisdom.

Dance is the physical definition of movement in stage art, the pure translation with the body is one of the most exciting ways of presenting feelings, words, ideas and architecture. Our perception of an object when it moves is getting bigger, making us wonder about its place, about its reason, we like to move and we like art that moves our eyes and shakes our causal sights.

The Serac Bench, a part of the Serac collection by Zaha Hadid was a duet, between dance and architecture. When the bench used as a stage, the architecture got another dimension, the dance helped the audience understand better the beauty behind the Serac Bench designed for Lab 23 and was one of the 12 works Zaha Hadid presented during the Salone Del Mobile 2013 in Milan, while its design rediscovers the fluid, continuous nature of Hadid’s work.

The bench, developed as an urban sculpture for seating and resting, the striated articulation of it emerges from the landscape, from its context, each layer taking its own unique trajectory in reaction to latent forces that disperse- and ultimately coalesce- the many strata of the bench to generate its overall formal composition.

The concept behind the bench is evoked by the image of a block of ice formed by intersecting crevasses in a glacier. It’s been developed in resin quartz, a tough and durable material that when shaped into a more curvaceous form, transitions into a softer, fluid and tactile surface. The sparkling crystal balances a stunning light play with mesmerizing depth.

This art in form of architecture plays with material, function and movement- all this creating an intriguing delight for the Salone 2013 visitors.