Art Basel Miami Beach celebrates art on a global scale. With over 55,000 of the art worlds most elite curators, artists, gallerists, scholars and critics swarming Miami in search of historically significant and the best contemporary art, the week-long celebration provides the platform for numerous cultural events.
In connection with Art Basel Miami Beach, Luminaire hosted an exhibition to extol the artistry of good design, as seen through the eyes of Zaha Hadid. An architect who consistently pushes the boundaries of architecture and urban design Zaha’s work experiments with new spatial concepts intensifying existing urban landscapes in the pursuit of a visionary aesthetic that encompasses all fields of design, ranging from urban scale through to products, interiors and furniture.
Zaha’s wish to be an architect began when she was eleven years old, and while many of her actualized works have been for corporate businesses and large scale public institutions, she has also always been in interested in combining architecture with a social agenda, hoping to one day invest in hospitals and housing in new, inventive ways.
Her work embraces all fields of design, ranging from urban scale to product, interiors and furniture, with a staunch covenant to modernism is consistent with Luminaire and stems from her simultaneous application of practice, teaching and research.
The exhibition therefore displayed some of her recent furnishings, such as the Aqua table, an organic, fluid piece that mirrors the beauty and remarkable complexity of Zaha Hadid’s architectural forms. Seemingly obscure, this unified shape is nonetheless formed with exacting precision. Three asymmetrical modules serve as the Aqua’s foundation as they flow unhindered through the surface, emerging as mild depressions in the tabletop
Silver drawings of her architectural concepts, as well as smaller models, were also on display. The design and art community fell in love with Zaha’s wonderously poetic aesthetic, one that envelopes the spaces it occupies in an unobtrusive, seamless style. The exhibition gave way to her recognition as Designer of the Year for Design.05 three years later, with a breathtaking installation in the Moore Building.
Friday, December 6, 2002
