好色先生TV

If you think Zaha Hadid鈥檚 buildings are invariably complex and strange, then you鈥檙e in good company. Hadid thinks so, too. When it comes to her latest completed building, these are the two qualities she picks out as the main characteristics confronting visitors.

The 拢56m building is Germany鈥檚 largest interactive science centre in Volkswagen鈥檚 hometown of Wolfsburg in Saxony, and it exhibits all Hadid鈥檚 trademarks of dynamic, fluid spaces and raking, off-balance forms.

Just don鈥檛 fall into trap of thinking this complexity and strangeness are whimsical. They are, assures Hadid, 鈥渞uled by a specific system based on an unusual volumetric structural logic鈥�.

This logic is generated by the concrete floor slab of the main exhibition hall. This is at first-floor level and is supported above an open undercroft on 10 great beefy concrete piers vaguely reminiscent of Le Corbusier鈥檚 pilotis.

The difference is that in Hadid鈥檚 design, these pilotis are huge inverted funnels, as though the first-floor slab were made of lycra stretched down to ground level.

And the funnels come in a bizarre assortment of squashed, sloping, wedge-shaped cones and are so cavernous that they contain the entrance hall and staircase, a restaurant, a shop and even an auditorium.

The underside of the floor slab is pock marked by large trapezoidal coffers housing ceiling lights. The concrete floor slab turns up at either side to form the perimeter walls of the exhibition hall, and these are punctuated by windows that match the lighting coffers below.

The roof is a complex steel space frame that is supported on the perimeter walls and four of the concrete cones that pass straight through the exhibition hall.

All in all, Wolfsburg鈥檚 weird science centre adds up to a magic box, that Hadid intends should 鈥渁waken curiosity and the desire for discovery鈥�. The real test will be whether it will allow visitors to tear their curiosity away from the building and transfer it to the 250 interactive displays of science and technology it contains.

The strangeness, if not the complexity, of Zaha Hadid鈥檚 science centre in Wolfsburg starts with the external view of the concrete shell