MEMORY OF ZAHA HADID with "Black Square"

University of Seoul, Department of Architecture, College of Urban Sciences, Seoul

Project idea

This is pavilion for the late Zaha Hadid in commemoration of first year after her death. During her life time, She was influenced by Malevich paintings, which is the representative of constructivism art.
In this pavilion, the painting 'Black Square' was used as a basic module.
the meaning of this painting is connected to the meaning of death, which is found in the book, "Death" written by Shelly Kagan.
Therefore, This pavilion was designed for visitors to think of the 'death' and 'eternity'.

Project description

[The characteristics of Malevich ‘Black square’]
1. Drastic simplicity.
2. Espeically, a white background is left as a transcendental state,
which functions as Room for spectator’s subjective feeling.
3. Suprematism
‘Square’ shape can’t be found in nature, which implies an 'ideal world'.

[The characteristics of ‘meaningful eternity’ in the book “DEATH”]
Both ‘Death’ and ‘Eternity’ exist in the flow of time.
While ‘Death’ is a recognized moment, ‘Eternity’ is an accumulation of moments.
In order for ‘eternity’ to be meaningful, it has to meet two premises.
1. Blessed life.
2. How to deal with boredom in ‘Eternity’?
- doing different things Consistently.
- eliminating memory periodically so as to refresh.

[pavilion with 'death' and 'eternity']
‘Death’ is the particular moment that human can recognize in lots of moments.
The black square indicates the recognized moment, “Death”
And It is expressed with black mass in pavilion.
This pavilion is located on ‘white sand river’, which brings up Black square’s white background.
As the weather changes, The sand river change its form, which reflects flow of time.

This pavilion consists of transparent square shapes, which reflect “Drastic simplicity“ of “Black square”.
The infinite white background(white sand river) can be seen through transparent masses in pavilion.

The transparent masses ultimately contrasts with black masses which is located in the middle of pavilion.
Transparent masses makes it hard to estimate how many layers
(square elements) are accumulated, which is related to ‘eternity’.

Therefore, the one transparent square mass indicates ‘one moment’,
And black mass means ‘recognized moment’, “Death”.

Visitors from the inside can observe the outside of building
through transparent masses, which allows them to feel change of time.

Each different masses on every floor means “Doing different things Consistently” ; the characteristics of meaningful ‘eternity’
These masses gradually changed to ‘regular quadrilateral’, which implies ‘ideal world’; the characteristics of ‘black square’(suprematism)
This pavilion is designed to have ‘opening’ every two mass
and each opening expresses “eliminating memory(moment) periodically”
; the characteristics of meaningful ‘eternity’
These openings also allow visitors to feel change of outside; flow of time(wind, temperature).


This pavilion is designed for visitors to think of the death and eternity.
Visitors going up toward the black masses can experience the access to ‘death’.
And visitors approaching the top after black masses can feel that the
death is just a moment in their life.
Finally, visitors on the top can see the accumulation of the masses
;accumulation of moments, which means all moments are connected each other continually.

Technical information

By stacking the transparent square masses, it consists of wall enveloping inside space. On the other hand, the stacked masses formulate the stairs inside, people can experience the inside of the pavilion.