Aptly entitled Ice Storm and rising to a height of 7 m, the walk-through sculpture brings to mind polar ice floes that have been crushed together and weathered by waves and wind. If Hadid's jagged signature has been smoothed over here, other trademarks are in evidence, such as soaring cantilevers and freeform openings. And they have at last broken free from anything as pedestrian as functional requirements.
The museum describes the fibreglass sculpture as a "spatial experiment", that "is the result of new digital potential that takes advantage of design and production practices so as to make innovative interior architecture comprehensible". Hadid, who conveniently holds a professorial post at the University of Applied Arts next door to the museum, has also recycled a few of her earlier furniture designs in the installation.
"The most important thing is motion," says the irrepressibly dynamic Hadid. "The flux of things, a non-Euclidian geometry in which nothing repeats itself: a new order in space."
If the idea of a trip to Vienna appeals, you can check out this claim for yourself; Zaha Hadid Architecture is on show at the MAK Exhibition Hall until 17 August.
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