Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid

A designer par excellence in the world of interior design

Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) is considered the most important architect of this era. An internationally renowned architect , she was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize in 2004. She began her career as an artist and often worked in furniture design. Her work engaged with the early Russian avant-garde, with Kasimir Malevich.

Some dates and successes

Born in Baghdad in 1950, she studied at the American University of Beirut before emigrating to England in 1972 to attend the Architectural Association . There she met Elia Zenghelis , Rem Koolhaas, who was a founding member of OMA – Office for Metropolitan Architecture , Bernard Tschumi , and Leon Krier , often cited as her mentor alongside El Lissistsky and, above all, Kazimir Malevich . After graduating in 1976, with a thesis on the theme of inhabited bridges and a project entitled “ Malevič Tektonik ,” she continued to teach at the Order of Architects until 1987. London also saw her debut, where she achieved her first success with an exhibition of paintings depicting Constructivist-influenced environments produced since the 1970s. These were visionary scenes that can be read as evidence of Hadid 's central role. Also in London, in 1979, the Anglo-Iraqi designer founded her first studio, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). The early years saw numerous important projects, many of which never progressed beyond the initial drawings, once again inspired by the language of the 1920s, from the design for “ The Peak ” in Hong Kong , which won an international competition in 1983 with the participation of over fifty architects, to the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin in 1986, and the unfortunate case of the Cardiff Bay Opera House in 1994. These are all works in which Zaha Hadid's interest was focused on reducing architecture to its elements, integrated into the topography thanks to highly complex systems and studied with cutting-edge construction techniques to create new urban landscapes. From the early 1990s, Hadid's expressive form began to shift towards what has become one of the dominant themes in everything she has designed: not only architecture but also movement, which is seen as the representation of a flow that moves through space and creates forms.

Zaha has a wealth of achievements in contemporary design

Projects such as the fire station in Weil am Rhein , Germany, inaugurated in 1993 and the first building to be actually entrusted to Hadid, or the Hoenheim-Nord Terminus in Strasbourg (1999–2001), culminate with more controversial works, many of which are located in Italy. There is the MAXXI in Rome, as well as the Rosenthal Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, her first project in America, in 2003, in which the road rises right into the building, becoming the spatial fulcrum. The Salerno Maritime Terminal (2002–2012), where according to Hadid, the platform gently rises, reflecting the series of ramps that progressively slope towards the interior of the building and provide passengers with access to the boarding platform; the Aquatics Centre , in London for the 2012 Olympics , whose envelope is inspired by moving water. Guangzhou Opera House in China (2010) and the Heyday Aliyev Center in Baku (2013). The latest was the Naples-Afragola high-speed train station , inaugurated in 2017, where yet another architectural form becomes an urban landmark, with a structure emerging from the ground. Similar architectural complexes have often prompted careful reflection on the theme of building materials, and ZHA has carried out some experiments, with Italcementi for the MAXXI in Rome and the Italian Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, which led to the filing of a patent for transparent concrete. But also through research conducted on Corian with DuPont , both for the Afragola station and for Z-Island , a monoblock kitchen presented at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan in 2006. For them, architecture was confined to paper, a matter of critical speculation about its fate and role in a hostile climate. Hadid's greatest achievement was to have changed this situation. The avant-garde is still wary of the compromises that building in the real world requires, but her recently opened Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati is convincing proof that her explosive vision of space is capable of becoming – without in any way compromising her ambitions – true functional architecture for a specific place and a specific role.