We love when design sparks a dialogue. And the desk by Zaha Hadid featured on a recent episode of the latest hit reality show 9 by Design is certainly a conversation piece. Dubbed "Robert's 'shark' desk" by Bravo TV, the seamless, organic form bears Hadid's signature curvilinear aesthetic. But such a bold statement piece isn't for everyone.
Describing her design for the MAXXI Museum in Rome in 2009, Hadid said it was intended to "embody the chaotic fluidity of modern life." The same could be said for the desk, which dominates the bedroom of these self-taught compulsive re-habbers, who miraculously manage to renovate one gargantuan property after another in record time while raising their seven children. This lifestyle isn't for everyone, but we're as captivated by their seemingly fluid dance in the face of overwhelming chaos as we are by their unique design choices.
The verdict is still out on whether the desk (which required a crane and several workers to install) will be a hit or a miss with potential buyers, but it raises an interesting question about whether one should consider future buyers when making design decisions and how housemates negotiate those investments.
Image: Bravo TV
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...and not a single drawer to put stuff away in.
Style over Substance.
Looks like sex furniture to me.
Yes, I said it, but you thought it.
When I stop laughing loud and hard at the thought of this thing in my home, I'll let you know how I REALLY feel.
(And do I dare ask about the price? Didn't think so...)
And where do you place your legs while doing whatever?
Surprisingly, the thing does actually have drawers -- they kept on falling out while they were attempting to put the thing into place. They did, however, have trouble figuring out where you actually sit in relationship to the thing. I'm sorry - I just can't stop calling it "thing".
agreed with the 'sex furniture' comment.
also hope the dust just 'falls' right off this piece, because i'm fairly confident i'm not tall enough or have nearly enough patience to keep it clean and shiny.
I think it looks like a nose.
I'm reading it more as a nose than a shark...
Seems like your pens would just keep rolling off.
This thing is so style over substance that the drawers that it does have are on the back side of the desk that is currently facing the wall. I wish they had just stuck this out in the garden and called it art, instead of pretending that it had any function or utility.
I think that today I lost my touch...I can't find a line anywhere on the web on this piece of furniture. Or a picture for that matter. No even the video on Bravo TV.
Maybe I just need holiday....
I cannot understand the big deal about her. Her designs are about style for style's sake. It's the rococco for the 21st century. Her architecture is pure pretense- style for style's sake.
So, clearly the client/owners thought the initial design sketches were as beautiful as they were utterly necessary. After all, they commissioned its realization--undoubtedly at great expensive and in a stunning grey, no less. They also clearly take immeasurable delight in the good looks of their multi-function printer/fax/scanner/copier, too. Oh sure, that could've been tucked into a secret, flush-concealed compartment somewhere within the bulk of the Chaos Desk, or heck, even in a closet (they are 'rehabilitations,' after all). Ah, but what a detriment to aesthetics *that would've been.
I think the printer on the floor, jammed in the corner pretty much says it all.
I saw the show where they placed this "thing" and the drawers, inexplicably, are on the opposite side of where you sit.
I must be missing something because I don't understand where one sits...is there supposed to be a chair?
@diridi--
It's actual name is not "Shark Desk"...
...but "Belu" - it was created in 2005 as one of a series of 12 (plus one proof and one prototype).
Do a Google Images search for "Belu Zaha Hadid" and you'll find it.
It's also here:
http://www.artnet.de/magazine/art-dealers-diary-24-week/
"The centerpiece of the booth is the Belu, Zaha Hadid’s sleekly biomorphic multifunctional object that serves as furniture, storage, seating and sculpture. The prototype was used as my desk at the ARCO art fair in Madrid a few years ago and was later in the artist’s retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York where they kindly dropped a ladder through it, a worse fate than ever happened to it while in my care, and I have four small boys at home. Why is it always museums who mishandle art? "
And here - From the catalog of the 2008 Sotheby's Auction in London where #7/12 was recently sold:
http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=159492636
""Belu is conceived as an autonomous single-celled body that allows for multi-functional use; as a table, counter, chair, container, or simply as a surface to lean on, rest on...With the dynamic complex geometry of a fluid volume, Belu is able to generate varying adjacency conditions in its direct relationship with the human body. Belu is not just an object for display, but a dynamic gesture that spatially defines its surroundings whilst serving a variety of functions." Zaha Hadid Architects
This lot is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Zaha Hadid Design Limited."
Creative desk, but it seems too massive for that particular space. That piece requires high ceilings and expansive floor space.
A desk? really? I imagined some giant apples and perhaps a pear.... it is a fruit bowl!
I first read, "agreed with the 'sex furniture' comment."
Then I read, "Seems like your pens would just keep rolling off."
Or actually, I MISread, "Seems like your pens would just keep rolling off."
It doesn't fit within this space very well to me; the style of it is so modern (slash useless) that I don't see how it matches with a four-poster bed and chandelier-style lighting. This simply doesn't work on so many levels...
I imagine myself getting frightened of it when walking into the room in the dark.
I'm not seeing the style or the substance.
This looks like something that should have been in Demi Moore's apartment in St. Elmo's Fire.
patrick (the other one):: ME TOO!!!
and I loved this episode of 9 By Design... i ADORE the fact that the monstorous desk ... has drawers on the OPPOSITE side to where you "approach" and i say approach b'cause i mean really... howdo you SIT at a curved countertop without your pens sliding off.... and for the size, one can only pressume that you get some sort of training session in how to effectively use your new workspace?? includng some sort of zero-gravity experiement and de-polarizing body scrub....
I do appreciate the aesthetic... but it doesn't match my design sensibility..... as i find it rather lacking in sensibility... and sense for that matter.
p2 - me2!!!
sara48,
I'm not going to touch that one.
@ bepsf
Thanks for your help! I was actually looking for something brand new.
that's a desk??
lovely.
I love her work, but this is ridiculously out of scale for the place. In a large spare loft, perhaps. But here? Oy.
How foolish looking. Trying to be so avant garde, it just looks ridiculous, ugly and impractical.
It'd look better with a fluffy cat on it. You know, to balance all that slick. Preferably a fluffy orange cat for contrast.
It's just huge, impractical, and no offense, but hideous.
What happened to all the comments?