Architect Zaha Hadid (1950-2016)
April 1, 2016
Zaha Hadid, an internationally famous Iraqi-born British architect, died unexpectedly on Thursday, March 31, at age 65. Hadid contracted bronchitis shortly before her death and suffered a fatal heart attack while being treated in a Miami, Florida, hospital.
In 2004, Hadid became the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The prize is the most prestigious international award in architecture. Hadid gained recognition for her visionary designs that reflected major art movements of the 1900’s, especially the Russian movement called Suprematism. Hadid’s designs show the Suprematist influence in their fragmented geometric forms that define the surrounding space in highly imaginative ways.
Many of Hadid’s projects were so daring they were never built. Some projects exist only as paintings and drawings, which have been praised as distinctive works of art themselves. However, many Hadid designs were built, including the Vitra fire station (1993) in Weil am Rhein, Germany; the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (2003) in Cincinnati; the Phaeno Science Center (2005) in Wolfsburg, Germany; the “Spittelau viaduct” housing project (2005) in Vienna, Austria; an opera house (2010) in Guangzhou, China; the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum (2012) at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan; and the Heydar Aliyev cultural center (2012) in Baku, Azerbaijan. Hadid also designed the Aquatics Center for the 2012 Olympic Games in London and the stadium for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. In addition, she designed exhibitions and interiors, such as the “Mind Zone” interior for the Millennium Dome in London in 1999.
Hadid was born on Oct. 31, 1950, in Baghdad, Iraq. From 1972 to 1977, she studied at the Architectural Association in London. She then worked in the office of noted architects Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis until she established her own London office in 1979. Hadid taught at the Architectural Association from 1980 to 1987 and had been a visiting professor at Harvard University. Hadid also designed furniture and theater sets. In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II made Hadid a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her services to architecture.