Dame Zaha Hadid was known as the “Queen of the Curve” for her swooping designs. She transformed architecture with daring structures that won her many awards throughout her career. Her team members at Zaha Hadid Architects remember her as a teacher who wanted them to push the limits of design.
Zaha Hadid was an architect known for her radical deconstructivist designs. She was the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 2004. Her buildings included the Heydar Aliyev Centre Baku, Azerbaijan, and the MAXXI museum of contemporary art and architecture in Rome.
A Virtual Tour of Zaha Hadid's Most Iconic Buildings
- Vitra Fire Station, Weil-am-Rhein, Germany. ...
- Bergisel Ski Jump, Innsbruck, Austria. ...
- Phaeno Science Center, Wolfsburg, Germany. ...
- Bridge Pavilion, Zaragoza, Spain. ...
- Guangzhou Opera House, China. ...
- Riverside Museum, Glasgow, Scotland. ...
- London Aquatics Centre, London, United Kingdom.
Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi-British Architect, who was the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Her style was intensely futuristic architecture characterized by curving facades, sharp angles, and using materials such as concrete and steel.
As a female architect she was a role model to many women and will continue to inspire the rising generations who need to stand up for themselves when under pressure and to work around problems instead of compromising. Zaha was the Architects' Journal winner of the Jane Drew prize for women in architecture in 2012.
Hadid stated that her architectural designs were not intended as a personal stamp on the world, or an act of self-indulgence. Rather, addressing 21st-century challenges and opportunities is the cornerstone to Zaha Hadid's style and creations.
She shattered gender stereotypes too by, in 2004, becoming the first woman to receive the Pritzker prize – the highest award in her field. As the world grapples with how to respond to the climate crisis, architecture is in the spotlight. The built environment is responsible for almost 36% of global energy consumption.
The study resulted in exposing the six techniques she uses to design the architectural form which are abstraction and fragmentation; idea of the ground and gravity; landscaping project and the surrounding context; Layering; play of light; seamlessness and fluidity.
From the beginning of her career Zaha Hadid was influenced by the artist Kazimir Malevich, who led her to use paint as a tool for architectonic exploration. During the 1980s, before Zaha had realized any of her works, she was faced with many fruitful years of theoretical architectural design.
Hadid was often called the “queen of the curve“. Her expressive designs pushed the limits of architectural geometry. Famously opposed to straight lines and mediocrity, her fluid-like structures breathe new life into the spaces around them.
“I've been interested in fashion since I was a kid. I used to alter my clothes, cut the sleeves off… Then I went through a phase in London when I used to wrap myself up in fabric. I'd attach it together with pins or staplers, staple together a whole outfit. That's what I wore all the time, winter and summer.
The Galaxy SOHO is an office, retail and entertainment complex in central Beijing. Completed by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2012, the impressive building—made from slabs of reinforced concrete, aluminum, stone, glass, and stainless steel—was inspired by the grand scale of China's capital city.
Art historians call Palladio the most imitated architect in history. Palladio is the grandfather of crown moldings, roof gables, classical columns, sweeping entry stairways and the porte-cochère. He popularized the eponymous Palladian window, a tall archway with three openings.
By the way, the famous models Gigi and Bella Hadid are not related to Zaha, even though their father is also linked to the construction business. In the beginning, Zaha wanted to become a mathematician and even studied science at the American University of Beirut.
She was renowned for her disregard for dull functionality and penchant for experimentation. The architect would not compromise her concepts or designs for practical constraints or technology. Instead, her swooping, curved, futuristic buildings tended to be structurally intricate.
Zaha Hadid dies following a heart attack. Turnover and staff numbers at the studio have grown since Zaha died, and there are between 80 and 100 projects on the go. This growth presents the studio with a unique opportunity, Schumacher said.
Zaha Hadid's intelligent use of materials
Zaha Hadid has used many innovative construction materials such as Glass-Fibre Reinforced Concrete in the Heydar Aliyev Centre, Glass-Fibre Textile used in Serpentine Sackler and a combination of aluminum and stone cladding for the Galaxy Soho.
And they're all correct: the Sheik Zayed Bridge, the 842-metre (2762-foot) bridge north of the Maqta Canal is all of these things combined. This marvel was designed by renowned Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, who died in 2016 and was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize.
The Iraqi-British Zaha Hadid became famous for her intensely futuristic architecture characterized by curving façades, sharp angles, and severe materials such as concrete and steel.
Obviously black. But with different textures.
Since 1988, Patrik Schumacher had been Hadid's closest design partner. Schumacher is said to have coined the tern parametricism to describe the curvaceous, computer-aided designs of Zaha Hadid Architects. Since Hadid's death, Schumacher is leading the company to fully embrace parametric design in the 21st Century.