Zaha Hadid (1950

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Biography

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was an Iraqi and British architect, artist, and designer. She is recognised as a key figure in the architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and later enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as a method to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building".

In Their Own Words (1)

Having a period of - well, austerity, shall we say - certainly humbles you.

Quoted in the Evening Standard, Tue 1 May 2012, p. 16. , 2012

Timeline

The story of Zaha Hadid, told in moments.

1983 Life

Won the competition to design the Peak Leisure Club in Hong Kong. It was never built. For the next decade, she was called a "paper architect." Competition victories. No commissions. She kept teaching and painting her angular, explosive designs.

How did a decade of being called a 'paper architect' not break you? Was the Hong Kong Peak design that was never built your best work? Did competition victories without commissions feel hollow?

1993 Life

Completed the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Her first built project. Concrete planes jutted at sharp angles. It looked like it was exploding in slow motion. After a decade of rejection, her buildings could finally be walked through.

What was it like walking through your first completed building? Was the Vitra Fire Station an explosion in slow motion or in concrete? Did a decade of rejection make the reality sweeter?

2004 Event

Won the Pritzker Prize. First woman to receive architecture's highest honor. The jury praised her for expanding "the repertoire of spatial articulation." She went on to design the London Aquatics Centre, Rome's MAXXI Museum, and the Guangzhou Opera House.

What did being the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize mean? How did the London Aquatics Centre feel compared to your earliest designs? Did the jury's words about 'spatial articulation' capture your intent?

2016 Death

Died of a heart attack in a Miami hospital at 65. Several buildings were still under construction, including Beijing's Daxing Airport. They were completed after her death. The curves she fought to build outlasted her.

Does dying with buildings still under construction feel unfinished? Would Daxing Airport please you? Were the curves worth every fight?

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