21. Movement

Transformation

Although an immovable building sounds like the most undynamic thing, transformation is still present in architecture, just as one can still sense movement in a painting from people’s positions. In architecture, the forms replace the people to suggest a transformation. Zaha Hadid’s Haydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, shows a three-dimensional curved plane that looks as if it is falling off the building—sliding forward and collapsing the structure underneath it. The building is not moving, but creates that idea through complex forms. The Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia, also shows a transformation by being static. The two large, curving planes that make up the buildings’ side walls push down on the building as if it is trying to rise from the ground but is being stopped. Here, this represents the building’s purpose as an educator on human rights issues and struggles and shows the fight to push for human rights despite opposition. The composition I created, showing the action “rotate,” also shows a transformation. It resembles the conventional simplification of a hurricane and, because of that, creates a sense of rotation due to its formal arrangements despite being a static formation. Thus form can create a sense of movement in architecture even if the building does not move.

Clockwise from the top right:

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta Georgia. Designed by HOK. Photo by HOK.

A massing composition I created intending to show the action “rotate.”

The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. Designed by Zaha Hadid. Photo by Hufton Crow.

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta Georgia. Designed by HOK. Photo by

A massing composition I created intending to

The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. Designed by Zaha Hadid. Photo by Hufton Crow.