Historical Figure
Zaha Hadid
1950–2016
Iraqi and British architect (1950–2016)
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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".
Timeline
The story of Zaha Hadid, told in moments.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In Their Own Words (1)
Artifacts (15)
The CM was stupefied and most reluctant to leave the ground,
rs against him, the bowler bowled the sixth ball, which knocked his stumps over as it went through. "The CM was stupefied and most reluctant to leave the ground," Ramiz Raja recalled. == Political...
Zaha Hadid: Space for Art ; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati ; Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art
"This publication presents the spectacular building in photographs by Helene Binet and Paul Warchol and essays by Charles Desmarais and Joseph Giovannini. Numerous models and sketches provide an...
A few moments before the match started, the cricket board secretary told me that...
incident before a 1987 Cricket World Cup warm-up match against the West Indies at Gaddafi Stadium. "A few moments before the match started, the cricket board secretary told me that the Chief Minister...
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