Music Video Pavilion was an installation commissioned for ‘What a Wonderful World! Music Videos in Architecture’, a 1990 urban festival in Groningen, the Netherlands. Zaha Hadid was one of five experimental architects invited to propel the emerging music video phenomenon into the public sphere. Inspired by the acrylic presentation case created for the Moonsoon interior (1989-90), the pavilion was a playful intervention in a challenging sliver of the city chosen by the architect. Its compact design responded to the narrowness of the plot and created a contrast between the neighbouring historic buildings. Inside, music videos beamed down from an upper viewing area, reflecting onto platforms and façades in metal and glass.
This model created by Daniel Chadwick presents three variations of the pavilion on a base complete with colour samples. They take us through the compression of latticed and punctured vertical slabs. The protruding forms of ramps and enclosures connect and disrupt them. Using a clear acrylic panel as a support, these elements are suspended above one of the models, exploded from the structure as in Hadid’s fragmentary paintings.
Designed alongside Folly 3 (1990) for the Expo ’90 in Osaka, Japan, the project anticipated a wealth of pavilions and other temporary structures created throughout Hadid’s career, including the design for the Great Utopia exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, New York (1992), and the Pet Shop Boys World Tour stage set (1999).
