Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid designed her own room even as a child

Zaha Hadid was born in Bagdad on 31 October 1950 to an extremely wealthy family that was open to Western values. Her father had studied at the London School of Economics and leaned towards the social democratic positions of the Fabian Society, and also admired the economists Sidney Webb, John Maynard Keynes and Hugh Dalton. The Hadid family home in Bagdad was one of the world’s first Bauhaus style buildings. It was in this liberal and intellectually stimulating environment that Zaha Hadid spent her childhood, received a good education just like her brothers, and initially studied maths at the American Academy of Beirut before beginning architectural studies at the Architectural Association School (AA) in London in 1972. Even as a child, she redesigned her bedroom, displaying such talent that her design was adopted by other nurseries in Bagdad. One of her teachers was the Dutch architect Rem Kohlhaas, in whose Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) she found temporary employment after graduating. 

Hadid’s bold ideas overwhelmed many builders

Zaha Hadid opened her own architect’s office in her chosen home of London in 1980. Through her work as lecturer at the AA, she gathered a growing number of followers and was soon able to realise her first own projects. Hadid’s ambitious design for a leisure and recreation park in Hong Kong beat off 600 competitors to win a prize of 100,000 US dollars. Although the project was never realised because of Hong Kong’s return to the People’s Republic of China, the unfinished Peak Leisure Club brought Hadid much attention and led the German architect Patrik Schumacher to her office for an internship in 1983. He became a full employee in 1988 and finally partner in 2002. Although Hadid was the only woman to take part in the groundbreaking Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and therefore considered a pioneer of Deconstructivism, she did not feel committed to it and instead strove for a new architectural language for Modernism. For a long time, her ideas overwhelmed her clients, and many projects did not develop beyond plans and drafts. 

The combination of high aesthetics and functionality

Zaha Hadid achieved the longed-for and overdue breakthrough in 1993 with her fire station for the Vitra factory in Weil am Rhein. The building, which completely dispenses with right angles, is now used as a museum. Although guided by the time-honoured Bauhaus mantra “form follows function”, she succeeded in developing a unique and futuristic style that made her famous all around the world. Her enthusiasm for eye-catching curved constructions earned her the nickname “Queen of Curves”. Zaha Hadid’s buildings are characterised by a combination of revolutionary design and high functionality. She also addressed the important subject of sustainability early on, striving for environmentally friendly construction methods. Zaha Hadid received many prizes and awards for her pioneering work, including the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture in 2003, the Pritzker Prize in 2004 (as the first woman), the Praemium Imperiale in 2009, and the Sterling Prize in 2010 and 2011. 

Zaha Hadid died in Miami, Florida on 31 March 2016.