Zaha

The Vitra Fire Station 1994

The Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein was Zaha Hadid’s first built project. The relatively small structure serves as a showcase for the unusual shapes and angles that architectural critics had admired in her conceptual work throughout the 1980’s.

As can be expected, the inside of the building is as imaginative as the outside, with multiple optical tricks being played on the viewer especially in the bathrooms of the downstairs portion of the building. 

Hadid’s interplay of angles and use of color makes the building’s interior as visually interesting as the outside without making it unnecessarily busy. Aside from the obvious appeal of the building’s outside, it should be noted that the back of the building also features poured concrete benches which mirror the buildings more sculptural qualities. The rear end of the building also features an interesting connection to Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut, whereby Hadid seems to evoke the front end of a large ship, with its sharp end and exaggerated height.

K. Bellon (GCCDC edit)