Zaha Hadid, 1950-2016

Zaha Mohammad Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iraq, to an upper-class family. Growing up, her family used to visit ancient Sumerian cities, which inspired her interest in architecture, and by the age of 11, she made up her mind to become one. Her parents encouraged her ambition and allowed her to design the interior of their home. In her youth, she attended boarding schools in Switzerland and England, and later she earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

At 22, she moved to London to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture. After graduation, her professor recruited her to his firm in the Netherlands. At 30, Hadid returned to the UK and opened Zaha Hadid Architects firm in London, and later another branch in NYC. At the time, the typical architectural style was postmodernism, and Hadid, with her innovative perspective, was set apart with more colorful and radical designs.

In 1983, at the age of 33, Hadid caught international attention when her proposal won in a competition to design The Peak center in Hong Kong, offering a horizontal skyscraper that diagonally moved down the hillside. Even though it was never built, this project established her aggressive geometric and dynamic aesthetic, as was reflected in her following designs proposals for the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, the Düsseldorf Art and Media Centre, and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales. Some of her designs were too avant-garde to be actualized and were displayed as artworks in various museums.

In 1993, 43 years old Hadid received her first major-built project for the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The structure, made of glass and concrete, was composed of sharp-angled forms that resemble a bird in flight. This design has launched her career, allowing her to explore her interests in designing dynamic sculptural structures with interconnecting spaces. Many appear in her works from this period, such as the IBA Housing in Berlin, the Mind Zone exhibition space at the Millennium Dome in London, the Land Formation One exhibition space in Weil am Rhein, and the Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck.

One of Hadid’s biggest successes came when she won the commission to design the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first woman to design an art museum in the US. Opened in 2003, the building, constructed of a series of vertical cubes and voids, was described as “the most important American building to be completed since the cold war.” Hadid continued winning more international competitions, designing buildings in her unique deconstructivist style. Including the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany, for which she won her first Royal Institute of British Architects Award (RIBA) and the Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou, China, with a US$300 million budget. In 2004, at 54, Hadid won the most prestigious award in architecture -­ the Pritzker Architecture Prize, making history as its first female recipient. Her next ambitious projects included the waveform Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi, The National Museum of Arts of the 21st Century in Rome, and the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku.

From the beginning of her career, Hadid taught architecture at various institutes, including- the Architectural Association, Cambridge University, and more. She also held the Sullivan Chair professorship at Chicago’s School of Architecture and served on the board of trustees of The Architecture Foundation and the Encyclopædia Britannica Editorial Board. Among the many awards and accolades she received throughout the years, she was named Commander of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).
Hadid died of a heart attack at the age of 65.

This post is also available in: