Busting the Box

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"People don't want to be in the kind of space that they inhabit every day," says Hadid. She calls the central conceit of the interior an "urban carpet," black diagonal stairways that hang in space like gangways. It will not just circulate crowds but also provide some of the same interior spectacle as Wright's great spiral at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Or think of the escalator atrium at any canny shopping mall. To be a museum these days is to compete in the world of theme parks and retail. That is fine with Hadid. "The idea of the urban carpet is to bring the street into the building," she says.

Though the building has its share of perpendicular lines, in total it's the work of a woman who treats right angles as something best left to squares. Dignity and energy aren't always easy to reconcile. Hadid has managed a building that's both pumping and poised, heated but also very cool. You can't help thinking of Le Corbusier, one of the founders of 20th century architecture, who once said even modern architecture is too staid. "Jazz is more advanced," he wrote in 1931. "If architecture were at the point reached by jazz, it would be an incredible spectacle." It's too bad he didn't live to see Hadid's performance in Cincinnati. You know what he would have said? "This joint is jumpin'!"