Zaha Hadid, Judith Turner: A Dialogue

The juxtapositions of Zaha Hadids architectural models and drawings and Judith Turners photographs of the architects buildings in this volume reveal that Hadid and Turner are complicit. There is a clear agreement of sensibilities. Each understands the other. Hadid does not design with complete geometries in stable con-figurations, but designs instead with incomplete or distorted geometries that are dynamic and visually unstable. Turner does the same in her photographs, cropping before a form completes itself in a frame that leaves the rest of the form suggested outside the frame. Hadids work is abstract a permutation of Modernisms trifecta of point, line and plane. Turners photography, too, is abstract so that Turners photographs of Hadids buildings compound the abstraction, arguably intensifying the three-dimension-al abstraction by compressing it into two. Hadids neutral palette of materials, especially concrete, takes on value in Turners graphic compositions of black, white and gray, counterintuitively giving neutrality subtle intensity.
Hadid structures her designs dynamically with diagonal lines and oblique planes playing with and against each other in three-dimensional fields. Likewise Turner works on the diagonal, always positioning herself obliquely to buildings, shooting glancingly rather than frontally: her diagonal position further dynamizes Hadids already energized diagonals. Often Turner doubles down on the diagonality by cranking the cameras lens off its up-down axis to heighten the architectural dynamism. Turning her photographic angle lofts Hadids already anti-gravitational architectural system off the ground. Judith Turner resides in New York where she began taking photographs in 1972. She has had solo exhibitions in various cities in the United States, Europe, South America, Israel, and Japan. Turner has been awarded several grants and fellowships. She received an Honor Award from The American Institute of Architects in 1994 and a Stars of Design Award in Photography from The Design Center of New York in 2007.