How my childhood made me the designer I am today | CNN

Zaha Hadid in front of the Trevi Fountain, Rome, photo family archives, copyright Zaha Hadid

On childhood: "When I was growing up, mathematics was an everyday part of life -- as well as drawing, or listening to music and reading books. My parents instilled in me a passion for discovery, and they never made a distinction between science and creativity. We would play with math problems just as we would play with pens and paper to draw, or listening to music and reading a book -- math was like sketching."

Helene Binet/Courtesy ZHA

Today: "I remember thinking that the Great Mosque of Cordoba was the most stunning space! Of course there are lots of other truly great spaces -- but this building left a tremendous impression on me. It has a dark interior, but then there is the extraordinary white marble inside the space -- it's like the modern hybrid projects we build today."

On childhood: "I grew up across the road from the church, and as a child I attended weddings, uninvited. Every single wedding! When the bride appeared, I just couldn't believe it! That was my whole perception of fashion. I've had an opportunity to work with some of the greatest couturiers in the world, some of the most talented designers; however, those wedding dresses were better, in my mind! I didn't really tune into hats much at that point; it was more the fantasy moment."

Today: "Hats have gone from being an accessory of conformity to being an accessory of rebellion. The most potent part of the body to decorate is the head, because you meet somebody's face. From all walks of life, from all corners of the planet, people instinctively like hats; they're intrigued. Every culture has a history of hats and headdresses."

Photo family archives, copyright Daniel Libeskind

On childhood: "When I first moved to New York I went to a regular school. I met a friend there, who is still a friend of mine; he's now also an architect! I sat next to him and I would point at things and he would write them down for me. What is this? A pencil. What is this? A desk. That's how I learned English... They tested me and put me in the dumb class, so instead of going into advanced classes, I got to do things like art, and murals for theater performances, so I luckily found myself in a fantastic spot!"

Jewish Museum, Berlin, Copyright Studio Libeskind

Today: "It's even true today, I see the tolerance of New York. It's not a perfect city, but you can see it's a very heterogeneous place, with people from all over the world, poor and rich, and so on. But they have to form some bond of solidarity, to make it into the future. That was my first experience from the minute I arrived. I fell in love with what it was."

Courtesy Kengo Kuma

On childhood: "As a child, when I was at home, I used to play with wood blocks all day long. Working on materials must have come from that habit."

"My fondness for holes or passageways comes from my childhood experience... back then, there were still some bomb shelters remaining in the hill [behind our house] and that was our ideal playing field. I loved the time of hiding in the shelter, totally detached from the life outside."

photo by Satoshi Asakawa, courtesy Kengo Kuma & Associates, Tokyo

Today: "I remember the earthen wall and washi [tough paper used in Japanese interiors] in the old house I lived in, and I now use those natural materials, partly with a sense of nostalgia, and some admiration. Also the tatami [straw mat covered] rooms, which began to cease in the post-war westernized houses, influenced my design a lot."

On childhood: "My encounters with learning-by-doing started, as did most else, with my mother, but my elementary school added further dimensions, as we learned through projects and worked with our teacher in teams. While constructing a model of an African mud house, we all -- seven-year-olds and teacher -- met a problem in supporting its walls: when you'd hammered one post in and began to hammer the second, the first popped out. And when a range of methods failed, the class ended in frustration. Next day we found a way, and 75 years later I remember the joy of solving it."

photo by Robert Venturi, courtesy Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

Today: "We must realistically say, 'Life is changing and it's not all bad,' and to embrace the crap, try to understand it and see that it might be very good for your creativity. It might in fact make art movements regenerate. I'm not against modernism. I love modernism. I grew up in a 1930s house that my parents built and it's always conditioned my life. But embracing these things and finding the good in them is what we're all about."

Courtesy Enrique Sobejano and Fuensanta Nieto

On childhood: "All children are attracted by patterns, drawings and games. During childhood, you do not establish differences between making things, playing, or inventing patterns. What interested us later as architects is the ability to relate all those experiences with our work."

Madinat al-Zahra Museum, Córdoba, Spain, 1999-2009, Photo©Roland Halbe

Today: "We think that when we design, we are actually always remembering some previous experiences. We mean not only life memories, but also what we have read in a book, seen in a film, or were told by someone. All this affects deeply our idea of reality and in that sense we are aware that a material, a texture, a form, a scent, may be the origin of an instinctive decision. At the core of each project is always a vital, poetic image, which informs the whole."

Story highlights

Top designers and architects including Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind explore how childhood experience has affected their work

Swipe through the gallery to see how each designer recalls their childhood, and how it affects their design practice today

CNN —

Six of the world’s top architects and designers are delving into their deepest, darkest and most distant memories for a new exhibition. The exhibition hopes to shed light on the elusive role of childhood experience in shaping creativity in adulthood.

“Childhood ReCollections: Memory in Design” at Roca London Gallery will include six modern-day “cabinets of curiosities” created by architects Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma, Daniel Libeskind, and Denise Scott Brown, plus Spanish design duo Nieto Sobejano, and hat designer Philip Treacy.

The “multisensory” cabinets aim to record and recollect designers’ early memories – bringing together photographs, text, objects, materials, scent, film, music and sketches – and contribute to visitors’ understanding of designs they have since produced.

Exhibition curator Clare Farrow has been keen to uncover influences that may fly under the usual radar. She says designers are often asked whose work inspired them as students, but that childhood memories can influence by “less direct” means. “Memories can be consciously retained as part of a creative identity, or triggered by an image, sound or scent, or slowly uncovered in a sequence of layers, like materials stored inside a box,” she says.

For writer and curator Farrow, the exhibition’s texts are as important as the visual displays. The text included with each designer’s cabinet was curated from interviews she conducted with each designer. In addition, Denise Scott Brown has contributed extracts from her new, unpublished manuscript, as well as other sources. The gallery at the top of this page collects together quotations from each designer.

The designers recall childhood inspiration, ranging from Daniel Libeskind’s mother’s geometric underwear designs in early 1950s Poland to a furniture studio in Beirut that inspired a 7-year-old Zaha Hadid. Treacy vividly describes his fascination with wedding gowns and chicken feathers, while Kengo Kuma found solace and excitement in disused Second World War bomb shelters.

But Farrow says she has found interesting similarities in the designers’ experiences too: “In the process of making the exhibition, certain patterns have emerged: the impact of world history on these very personal stories; themes of displacement and difference; the importance of nature and music in childhood; the links between science and art; and the involvement of all the senses in establishing a unique design vision.”

Some designers have created original work for the exhibition, including new sketches by architects Kuma and Libeskind inspired by their childhood memories, while Nieto Sobejano has developed an interactive display.

The free exhibition will run at the Zaha Hadid-designed gallery space – part of the London showroom for Spanish bathroom brand Roca – until 23 January 2016.