In Memoriam | Zaha Hadid (1950-2016)

I have just learned of her passing. Zaha was definitely influential not only as designer of build architecture but also as thought-provoking architectural theory.
Her work was the first to get recognition for the integration of geometry and architecture, parametric design. Hadid was the first woman to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal for architecture in February 2016. In 2014 she was also the first woman recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. She was also awarded the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011
I also admired her way to 'wear' her design concepts, as in the jewelry she designed. Below are snapshots from the 2006 opening at Max Protech gallery in New York.

Vernissages | NYC: Atara Baker at Fox Gallery NYC

An unusual thought provoking pop-up exhibition is on view at Fox Gallery NYC: the mixed media paintings /anthropomorphic masks by Atara Baker, an Israeli born and California based artist who spent over a decade in South Africa. The curator Annette Benda-Fox relates Baker's work to the recent exhibition of Picasso's sculptural work at MoMA "Walking through MoMA’s historic Picasso sculpture exhibit last month, I was once again struck by the impact non-western (African, Oceanic) art exerted upon modern art in the 20th century.  From Picasso’s revolutionary Les Demoiselles d’Avignon through Brancusi, Paul Klee, Giacometti, David Smith, Henry Moore, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Motherwell, Keith Haring, John Michel-Basquiat, Antoni Tapies,  and others, primal energy has imbued the artist’s vision and work. I first observed this while cataloging African and Oceanic art for Sotheby's. I was deeply affected by the works' emotional power, beauty and symbolism.

Symmetry Meditations: Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi

camminando | A Metro Ride to Dubai Downtown

Walking in Dubai is a challenge, in a pedestrian unfriendly city spreading for about 75 km in the north-east to south-west direction. Construction is all over and often there are no sidewalk and I give up my walking ambitions, yet I decided to opt for an hybrid of walk and public transportation.

My hotel is in Barsha, about 2 km from the Media Internet City Metro Station. The Red Line of the elevated metro rail (driverless and fully automated) takes me with a 15 km / 15 minutes / five stops to Downtown Dubai, running parallel to the highway Sheikh Zayed Road. The mixed-use downtown development is towered by the Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 meters.

 

Approaching Dubai Downton: will the skyline become a place?

Views from the Dubai Mall: isn't the world a global place?

Dubai Downtown, everlasting construction

My field of view framed by palm trees framing the Burj Khalifa: isn't high relative in our perceptions?

Dubai Fountain Lake

Walking in Dubai Downtown

Views from the Dubai Metro Red Line