Zaha Hadid rarely does residential projects, but her name is about to blow up on the house scene. Roger Sanchez, the former Pratt architecture student now better known as a DJ, named his latest track after the architect who brought you Rome's troubled MAXXI Museum and mega-dealer Kenny Shachter's Boatmobile.
The pulsing, bouncy single is a musical interpretation of Hadid's deconstructivist aesthetic, driven by a relentless electronic bassline. "It's tech-house, futuristic, minimal but with lots of varying elements that are opposing but work together beautifully," Sanchez told Building Design UK. "It has an angular high at the end which conforms to the form of her designs and there’s a crescendo in the middle that reminds me of her focal points." It's poppier than the reserved demeanor we imagine when we hear Hadid's name, so the song is probably the only time we'll encounter "Zaha Hadid" on a dance floor.
This is only the first track from Sanchez's forthcoming architecturally-inspired album; he's promised songs devoted to the work of Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei, and Antoni Gaudí, whose surreal exteriors would lend themselves well to to dancey house music. We're nervous about how his Frank Lloyd Wright and Tadao Ando tracks are going to be received, however — country music and zen-like silence don't usually do so well on the dance floor.
Listen to Roger Sanchez's song "Zaha Hadid":