Case Study: Zaha'a Music Hall

Everyone involved in the industry knows Zaha Hadid. The organic elegance with which her designs flow and undulate is unmistakable. The controversy that surrounds her projects is well-documented and her reputation for fiercely following her vision—despite the criticism—is legendary.

Grabbing recent headlines for winning competitions to design the 450,000m² Cairo Expo City as well as the city’s 525,000m² Stone Towers development, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) continues to make architectural waves in the region.

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FEATURED COMMENT ZHA's fantastic, sometimes too complex, we once make glass for her design ...don't want to do again ... :)   1 Comments Read more comments »

But, aside from the pomp and circumstance of the high-profile projects and provocative designs, ZHA and Hadid herself are often overlooked for the simple beauty of some of their smaller-scale projects.

One such project is a chamber music hall ZHA designed for a little-known international festival in Manchester, UK. Held from July 2-19, according to its website, the Manchester International Festival is a biennial festival of art, which celebrates new and original works from across the spectrum of performing arts, music, visual arts and popular culture.

‘Frozen music’
ZHA’s Chamber Music Hall is a bespoke design inspired by the complexity of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, which was created to house solo performances of his music.

Within the structure, a massive ribbon swirls throughout the room, carving out a spatial and visual response to the intricacies of Bach’s harmonies.

According to transcripts of an interview with ZHA, “As the ribbon careens above the performer, cascades into the ground and wraps around the audience, the original room as a box is sculpted into fluid spaces swelling, merging, and slipping through one another.”

The ribbon itself consists of a translucent fabric membrane articulated by an internal steel structure suspended from the ceiling. The surface of the fabric shell undulates in a constant but changing rhythm as it is stretched over the internal structure.

It varies between the highly tensioned skin on the exterior of the ribbon and the soft billowing effect of the same fabric on the interior of the ribbon.

“The design enhances the multiplicity of Bach’s work through a coherent integration of formal and structural logic,” says Hadid. “A single continuous ribbon of fabric swirls around itself, creating layered spaces to cocoon the performers and audience with in an intimate fluid space.”