The Deconstructivism: Zaha HADID

Life and career

Zaha Hadid, CBE (Arabic: زها حديد‎ Zahā Ḥadīd; born 31 October 1950) is an Iraqi-British^{[citation needed]} architect and winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004.

Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

After graduating she worked with her former teachers, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977. It was with Koolhaas that she met the engineer Peter Rice who gave her support and encouragement early on, at a time when her work seemed difficult to build. In 1980 she established her own London-based practice. During the 1980s she also taught at the Architectural Association. She has also taught at prestigious institutions around the world; she held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture, guest professorships at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, the Knowlton School of Architecture, at The Ohio State University, the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York and the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.^[1] She has been on the Board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria.

A winner of many international competitions, theoretically influential and groundbreaking, a number of Hadid's winning designs were initially never built: notably, The Peak Club in Hong Kong (1983) and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994). In 2002 Hadid won the international design competition to design Singapore's one-north masterplan. In 2005, her design won the competition for the new city casino of Basel, Switzerland. In 2004 Hadid became the first female and first Muslim^[2] recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Previously, she had been awarded a CBE for services to architecture. She is a member of the editorial board of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In 2006, Hadid was honoured with a retrospective spanning her entire work at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In that year she also received an Honorary Degree from the American University of Beirut.

Zaha Hadid's architectural design firm – Zaha Hadid Architects – is over 350 people strong, headquartered in a Victorian former school building in Clerkenwell, London.

In 2008, she ranked 69th on the Forbes list of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women".^[3] On 2 January 2009, she was the guest editor of the BBC's flagship morning radio news programme, Today.^[4]

In 2010 she was named by Time magazine as influential thinker in the 2010 TIME 100 issue.^[5] In September 2010, The British magazine New Statesman listed Zaha Hadid at number 42 in their annual survey of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".^[6]

She won the Stirling Prize two years running: in 2010, for one of her most celebrated works, the Maxxi in Rome, and in 2011 for the Evelyn Grace Academy, a Z-shapes school in Brixton

Hadid is the designer of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in Seoul, South Korea, which is expected to be the centerpiece of the festivities for the city's designation as World Design Capital 2010. The complex is scheduled to be completed in 2011.

Interior Architecture & Product Design work

She has also undertaken some high-profile interior work, including the Mind Zone and Feet zone at the Millennium Dome in London as well as creating fluid furniture installations within the Georgian surroundings of Home House private members club in Marylebone, and the Z.CAR hydrogen-powered, three-wheeled automobile. In 2009, she worked with the clothing brand Lacoste, to create a new, high fashion, and advanced boot.^[7] In the same year, she also collaborated with the brassware manufacturer Triflow Concepts^[8] to produce two new designs in her signature parametric architectural style.

In 2007, Zaha Hadid designed the Moon System Sofa for leading Italian furniture manufacturer B&B Italia.^[9]

Architectural work

Conceptual projects

Price Tower extension hybrid project (2002), Bartlesville, Oklahoma – pending
Guggenheim-Hermitage Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania, (2008–) – not realised
Kartal-Pendik Waterfront Regeneration, Istanbul, Turkey
Szervita square bubble office building Budapest, Hungary – not realised

Completed projects

Vitra Fire Station (1994), Weil am Rhein, Germany
Hoenheim-North Terminus & Car Park (2001), Hoenheim, France, project architect: Stephane Hof
Bergisel Ski Jump (2002), Innsbruck, Austria
Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (2003), Cincinnati, Ohio
BMW Central Building (2005), Leipzig, Germany
Ordrupgaard annexe (2005), Copenhagen, Denmark
Phaeno Science Center (2005), Wolfsburg, Germany
Maggie's Centres at the Victoria Hospital (2006), Kirkcaldy, Scotland
Tondonia Winery Pavilion (2001–2006),^[10] Haro, Spain
Eleftheria Square redesign (2007), Nicosia, Cyprus
Hungerburgbahn new stations (2007), Innsbruck, Austria
Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion (Worldwide) Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, London, Paris, Moscow, (2006–2008)
Bridge Pavilion (2008), Zaragoza, Spain
J. S. Bach Pavilion, Manchester International Festival (2009), Manchester, UK
CMA CGM Tower (2010), Marseille, France
Pierres Vives (2002–2012), Montpelier, France, project architect: Stephane Hof
MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts (1998–2010), Rome, Italy.^[11] Stirling Prize 2010 winner.
Guangzhou Opera House (2010), Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
London Aquatics Centre (2011), 2012 Summer Olympics, London, UK.
Riverside Museum (2007–2011) development of Glasgow Transport Museum, Scotland
Evelyn Grace Academy (2006–2010) in Brixton, London, UK

Ongoing and future projects

New Maritime Terminal, Salerno, Italy (to be completed by 2011).
Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan State University, (2008–12)^[12]
Mandarin Oriental Dellis Cay, Villa D (2012) (private home under construction), Dellis Cay, Turks & Caicos Islands
Napoli Afragola railway station, Italy (completion delayed to 2013)^[13]
Citylife office tower (Storto) and residentials, Milan, Italy (to be completed by 2014)
Nuragic and Contemporary art museum (2006) (on hold), Cagliari, Italy
d'Leedon, Singapore (2011)
Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.^[14]
Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in Seoul, South Korea.^[15]
Galaxy Soho in Beijing, China.^[16]

In 2010, Hadid has been commissioned by the Iraqi government to design the new building for the Central Bank of Iraq. This project will be her first project for her native country.^[17]
Other work includes Pierres Vives, the new departmental records building (to host three institutions, namely, the archive, the library and the sports department), for French department Hérault, in Montpellier.^[18]
Zaha Hadid's project was named as the best for the Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in 2008. She designed the Innovation Tower for Hong Kong Polytechnic University, scheduled for completion in 2011, and the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion that was displayed in Hong Kong in 2008.^[19]^[20]^[21] She completed a new building for Evelyn Grace Academy, London, in 2010.^[22]

Exhibitions

1978 – Guggenheim Museum, New York
1983 – Retrospective at the Architectural Association, London
1985 – GA Gallery, Tokyo
1988 – Deconstructivist Architecture show at MoMA, New York
1995 – Graduate School of Design at Harvard University
1997 – San Francisco MoMA
2000 – British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
2001 – Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg
2002 – (10 May – 11 August) Centro nazionale per le arti contemporanee, Rome^[23]
2003 – (4 May – 17 August) – MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts) in Vienna
2006 – (3 June – 25 October) – Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
2006 – (1 June – 29 July) – Ma10 Mx Protetch Gallery, Chelsea, NYC
2007 – (29 June – 25 November) – Design Museum, London
2011/2012 – (20 September 2011 – 25 March 2012) – Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion at the Philadelphia Museum of Art