Russian Constructivism originated in 1919 during the revolution, where art was used for a major social purpose . Its main colours were red, black and white, where red meant revolution, black anarchy and white was white Russians. Throughout there were references to the machine aesthetic and culture. It used pure geometric abstraction (suprematism) – rhythm and harmony. It had a major impact on architecture, industrial design, film and fashion and influenced the Bauhaus and De Stijl.

Zaha Hadid was an extremely successful Iraqi architect born in 1950. Hadid’s style is contemporary, organic and innovative. During the late 1970s and 1980s her projects were influenced by early 20th  Century avant-garde artists and architects. Her projects expressed utopian ideals and attempted to redevelop and make relevant again the formal investigations of Russian Constructivism.

Zaha Hadid designed the Car Park and Terminus Hoenheim-Nord in Strasbourg, France which was completed in 2001. In her designs for this she departs away from modernism and looked to constructivist aesthetic elements. she created dynamic architecture of connectivity, continuity, and tectonic shifts. She combined basic materials, such as concrete, asphalt, steel which followed her study on ‘magnetic fields’, a kind of abstraction of paths of motion on site. The whole site is tied together by  the terminus building being asymmetric and having angular forms which evokes visual perspectives which reinforce the paths of motion.

Zaha Hadid, Car Park and Terminus Hoenheim-Nord